Project description
Turning up renewable solar heat and power for efficient green hydrogen production
High-temperature solid oxide electrolysis can be used to produce green hydrogen at zero-emissions to meet hydrogen needs in industrial applications. It is particularly sustainable when coupled with renewable energy sources. However, these sources are intermittent and often cannot deliver the high temperatures required for steam generation in the electrolysis process. The EU-funded PROMETEO project will optimise the coupling of solid oxide electrolysis (the hydrogen generator) with intermittent renewable heat and power from solar energy with the help of a thermal energy management system (TEMS). TEMS will make sure the heat stays hot enough to drive the solid oxide electrolysis at low-cost and high efficiency. The PROMETEO prototype will consider three industrial applications as end-users.
Objective
PROMETEO aims at producing green hydrogen from renewable heat & power sources by high temperature electrolysis in areas of low electricity prices associated to photovoltaic or wind.
Solid Oxide Electrolysis (SOE) is a highly efficient technology to convert heat & power into hydrogen from water usually validated in steady-state operation. However, the heat for the steam generation may not be available for the operation of the SOE when inexpensive power is offered (e.g. off-grid peak, photovoltaics or wind). Thus, the challenge is to optimize the coupling of the SOE with two intermittent sources: non-programmable renewable electricity and high-temperature solar heat from Concentrating Solar (CS) systems with Thermal Energy Storage (TES) to supply solar heat when power is made available.
In PROMETEO a fully integrated optimized system will be developed, where the SOE combined with the TES and ancillary components will efficiently convert intermittent heat & power sources to hydrogen. The design will satisfy different criteria: end-users’ needs, sustainability aspects, regulatory & safety concerns, scale-up and engineering issues.
The players of the value-chain will play key roles in the partnership created around the project: from developers and research organizations, to the electrolyzer supplier, system integrator/engineering and end-users.
A fully-equipped modular prototype with at least 25 kWe SOE (about 15 kg/day hydrogen production) and TES (for 24 hours operation) will be designed, built, connected to representative external power/heat sources and validated in real context (TRL 5). Particular attention will be given to partial load operation, transients and hot stand-by periods.
Industrial end-users will lead to techno-economic & sustainability studies to apply the technology upscaled (up to 100 MW) in on-grid & off-grid scenarios for different end-uses: utility for grid balancing, power-to-gas, and hydrogen as feedstock for the fertilizer & chemical industry.
Fields of science
Keywords
Programme(s)
- H2020-EU.3.3. - SOCIETAL CHALLENGES - Secure, clean and efficient energy Main Programme
- H2020-EU.3.3.8.2. - Increase the energy efficiency of production of hydrogen mainly from water electrolysis and renewable sources while reducing operating and capital costs, so that the combined system of the hydrogen production and the conversion using the fuel cell system can compete with the alternatives for electricity production available on the market
- H2020-EU.3.3.8.3. - Demonstrate on a large scale the feasibility of using hydrogen to support integration of renewable energy sources into the energy systems, including through its use as a competitive energy storage medium for electricity produced from renewable energy sources
Funding Scheme
RIA - Research and Innovation actionCoordinator
00196 Roma
Italy