OSOD - 1 step process hydrogen generator for highly efficient, safe and cost competitive production and storage of hydrogen

Project Information

RGH2 OSOD system

Grant agreement ID: 774512

DOI

10.3030/774512

Project closed

EC signature date 2 May 2017

Start date 1 June 2017

End date 30 November 2017

Funded under

• SOCIETAL CHALLENGES - Secure, clean and efficient energy

Total cost

€ 71 429,00

EU contribution

€ 50 000,00

Coordinated by

ROUGE H2 ENGINEERING AG
Austria

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - RGH2 OSOD system (OSOD - 1 step process hydrogen generator for highly efficient, safe and cost competitive production and storage of hydrogen)

Reporting period: 2017-06-01 to 2017-11-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

What is the problem/issue being addressed?
Hydrogen has the potential to be a clean and sustainable energy carrier for our society. Currently there are two critical issues for the successful integration of hydrogen in our energy infrastructure:
Firstly, most countries do not have an area-wide network of hydrogen distribution and filling stations to supply affordable hydrogen sufficiently.
Secondly, hydrogen is a secondary energy carrier and its ecological characteristic depends on the feedstock and the production method. Up to day, hydrogen is produced in large centralised plants by the reforming of fossil fuels and thus this hydrogen cannot be considered a clean source of energy. Additionally, these large-scale plants suffer from poor down scalability for decentralised systems. Hence the produced hydrogen is transported with trucks in gaseous or liquid form or via pipelines over long distances. Truck transportation of hydrogen consumes huge amounts of energy and significantly increases the volume of traffic. The delivery via a pipeline network demands huge financial investments, which hinders a fast expansion of the hydrogen infrastructure. Furthermore the centralised production requires large buffer storage systems at the consumer sites to compensate for demand fluctuations and potential supply chain interruptions. Conclusion: The centralised hydrogen production with its long distance distribution logistics increases the total production costs of hydrogen considerably and prevents the successful integration of hydrogen as clean energy source into our society.

Rouge H2 Engineering GmbH is a company dedicated to cutting down air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions by developing the most competitive hydrogen production system for cleaner, smarter and more efficient decentral hydrogen production.


Why is it important for society?
The reduction of harmful GHG emissions as well as the transition from fossil fuels towards environmentally friendly and renewable forms of energy are two critical challenges of our time.
The Fuel Cell technology utilising hydrogen has the potential of supplying us with emission free electricity in stationary and mobile applications. In order to harness the potential of hydrogen as clean energy source we have to assure an area-wide infrastructure, which is able to supply clean and affordable hydrogen. Besides that, producing hydrogen out of biogas can help the struggling biogas plants to open a new business and supports the installation of infrastructure especially in rural areas.
Hydrogen produced with the current technology cannot be considered a clean source of energy. The development of technologies for the production of clean hydrogen is critical, since it reduces our dependency on fossil energy sources, reduces the amount of foreign energy imports and enables the transition into a sustainable society.
The utilisation of locally available renewable resources enhances the development of rural regions in Europe, while reducing the emissions of harmful GHG emissions. The reduction of non-renewable CO2 is considered the most important contribution to reverse the effects of manmade global warming and to diminish the anthropogenic influence on climate change.



What are the overall objectives?
Rouge H2 Engineering GmbH is developing the highly innovative system for a decentralised sustainable hydrogen production. This on-site on-demand technology enables the supply of affordable clean hydrogen, which can be directly utilised for various applications ranging from industrial process over stationary heat and power generation to mobility applications in fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEV). The decentral application enables the efficient exploitation of locally available renewable resources ensuring a sustainable production of affordable hydrogen.

The main tasks in the current project phase are:

• Specification of the system scale and hydrogen output of the first generation of the demonstration units.
• Innovative system development and engineering for the manufacturing of a high efficiency clean hydrogen production system.
• Development of a strategy for a continuous optimisation of the system to increase its efficiency and expand its application flexibility.
• Analysis of the hydrogen market to identify the segments with the highest demand for decentralised hydrogen production to enable a quick and successful integration of the first commercially available OSOD system into the market.
• A close cooperation and continuous communication between partners and Rouge H2 Engineering GmbH to optimise the ongoing product development towards a system that perfectly fits the customers’ needs.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The phase 1 of the project was successfully finished and all critical milestones were reached. RGH2 has created network of communication with potential customers, competitors, suppliers and research partners, who are enthusiastically contributing to the idea of a sustainable energy infrastructure based on renewable hydrogen. RGH2 engages in regular communications with its contacts openly sharing information and ideas but always safeguarding its own intellectual property and respecting the IP of its counterpart. From the various contacts suitable partners for the construction and engineering of the first OSOD prototype were selected. Each partner contributes to the project by adding their unique knowhow and expertise. Hence all technical issues were successfully handled by RGH2 and its partners. The project management and technical executives are satisfied with continuous progress of the process development.
Europe was identified as the initial market with well suited facilities and highly trained available personal and its large amounts of potential customers.
External funding is needed for the next phase of construction and demonstration of the first OSOD prototype plant.

The Technical and financial studies were finished concluding that there is a solid business opportunity for the OSOD system in various industrial fields today already. A booming market is expected to exist in the near future due to the successful market introduction of fuel cells in stationary and mobile applications.

The studies yielded the following results:
1. finished the technical study and experimental evaluations
2. system development and process engineering finished, OSOD system is ready for construction
3. identified the size and nature of the market
4. created a business plan for a successful market introduction
5. multi-stage growth strategy created to become a centre for production, engineering and research for decentralised hydrogen production
6. Intellectual property strategy created to protect all current and future developments

RGH2 is performing regular dissemination activities of its project results, which includes participation in forums, preparation of leaflets and videos, exhibition at international trade fairs, attendance of R&D competitions and social media activities.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

Rouge H2 Engineering GmbH is developing a highly innovative system for a decentralised sustainable hydrogen production. This on-site on-demand (OSOD) technology enables the supply of affordable clean hydrogen, which can be directly utilised for various applications ranging from industrial processes over stationary heat and power generation to mobility applications in fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEV). This novel solution that exceeds the current state of the art technologies provides a powerful tool to our potential customers. Customers such as small business or large industrial companies with hydrogen as part of their regular process, rural and urban communities who are at the forefront of implementing renewable hydrogen as a sustainable energy source or highly innovative fuel cell developers who want to produce their own hydrogen for fuel cell test beds directly onsite.
All these clients benefit equally from the advantages of the OSOD system, which are affordable hydrogen, CO2 neutral energy supply, independency from fossil energy imports, on demand production and omission of large scale hydrogen transportation and storage.
We are currently constructing a demo plant of the OSOD system, which produces hydrogen, stores it and provides it on-site on-demand. All we need is a source of hydrocarbons such as biogas, biomass or natural gas. The OSOD system is modular and scalable, which means it can be configured from small feed rates to large units to fit the individual needs of our customers.
OSOD revolutionises logistics regarding the supply of hydrogen. Therefore it will be a game changing technology on the way to a decentralised clean energy supply. Beside the Smart City integration, OSOD also will help in rural and alpine areas to build up a new infrastructure for hydrogen fuel stations and smart power applications, in order to become more independent regarding energy supply.

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