Multimegawatt high-temperature electrolyser to generate green hydrogen for production of high-quality biofuels

Project Information

MultiPLHY

Grant agreement ID: 875123

DOI

10.3030/875123

Project closed

EC signature date 11 December 2019

Start date 1 January 2020

End date 31 December 2025

Funded under

• SOCIETAL CHALLENGES - Secure, clean and efficient energy

Total cost

€ 9 751 722,51

EU contribution

€ 6 993 725,39

Coordinated by

COMMISSARIAT A L ENERGIE ATOMIQUE ET AUX ENERGIES ALTERNATIVES
France

Periodic Reporting for period 4 - MultiPLHY (Multimegawatt high-temperature electrolyser to generate green hydrogen for production of high-quality biofuels)

Reporting period: 2023-07-01 to 2024-12-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The shift to a low-carbon EU economy raises the challenge of integrating renewable energy (RES) and cutting the CO2 emissions of energy intensive industries (EII). In this context, hydrogen produced from RES will contribute to decarbonize those industries, as feedstock/fuel/energy storage. MULTIPLHY thus aims to install, integrate and operate the world's first high-temperature electrolyser (HTE) system in multi-megawatt-scale (~2.4 MW), at a renewable products refinery in Rotterdam (NL) to produce hydrogen (≥ 60 kg/h) for the refinery's processes.
MULTIPLHY will demonstrate the technological and industrial leadership of the EU in Solid Oxide Electrolyser Cell (SOEC) technology. With its rated electrical connection of ~3.5 MWel,AC,BOL, electrical rated nominal power of ~2.6 MWel,AC and a hydrogen production rate ≥ 670 Nm³/h. MULTIPLHY's electrical efficiency (85 %el,LHV) will be at least 20 % higher than efficiencies of low temperature electrolysers, enabling the cutting of operational costs and the reduction of the connected load at the refinery and hence the impact on the local power grid.

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 2.6 MWel,AC unit presented in this article comprises a 2.4 MWel,AC high temperature steam electrolyser and a 0.2 MWel,AC hydrogen processing unit. The system is based on Sunfire's “Gen-2” solid oxide technology. The unit is made of 12 modules and is designed to deliver a flow rate of hydrogen of ≥ 60 kg/h. Each module went through a factory acceptance test and all passed the quality criteria at the first time, and could subsequently be shipped to Rotterdam, to be installed at NESTE renewable products refinery. They were able to demonstrate an electrical efficiency above 86 %el,LHV as expected with this technology. The HPU, responsible to process the hydrogen produced to meet the quality and pressure criteria of the refinery process, has been designed by Paul Wurth and its components also passed the factory acceptance tests with success. On NESTE side, the plot has been prepared in Rotterdam refinery, to receive the HTSE and HPU units and to provide the requested power line and other utilities. The whole unit has been successfully installed on site and the commissioning performed.
In parallel, long term stack tests were performed at laboratory scale in order to assess the technology performance and durability. Two types of stacks, made of either electrode or electrolyte supported cells, at two scales, a few kW and up to 10 to 20 kW scale, have been tested over durations up to 8 kh. Thanks to a smart operation strategy adopted for all stack types and sizes and consisting in compensating degradation by a stack temperature evolution over time, it has been shown that they could be operated over those durations without any hydrogen production loss, the current density being kept constant over the whole duration. This operation strategy is the one which will be used for the operation of the pilot.
Thanks to stack design improvement, the latest generations were able to operate at higher current densities, respectively – 0.79 A/cm² for the “Gen-3” electrolyte supported stack prototype and – 0.92 A/cm² for electrode supported stacks, with a lower degradation rate despite the higher current density. Those results are encouraging for the next generations of the technology, of which the maturity and size of units installed are expected to grow hugely over the next years.

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)

MULTIPLHY is the largest SOE system installed worldwide in an industrtial environment.
MULTIPLHY will contribute
1. To increase the energy efficiency of production of hydrogen mainly from water electrolysis and re-newable sources while reducing operating and capital costs,
2. to demonstrate on a large scale the feasibility of using hydrogen to support the integration of re-newable energy sources into the energy systems.
Through a multitude of improvements (e.g. efficiency, durability, costs, and scale), MULTIPLHY will significantly impact the competitiveness of green hydrogen production compared to fossil alternatives.
The produced information on the operational, technical and financial performance of the HTE itself and the illustration of the integration into the commercial and technical processes of NESTE will ensure that the re-sults have the maximum impact for further market deployment.

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