During the last reporting period, several activities have been implemented and results achieved.
EPFL has performed the life cycle assessment and life cycle cost on SWITCH system (SOE).
• LCA study was completed and provides a comprehensive understanding of the environmental trade-offs, identifying hotspots where emissions can be minimized, and resources optimized, by introducing the stack manufacturing process environmental analysis.
• The results show that SWITCH system has lower climate change impacts compared to other electrolyzer technologies, and that the capital expenditure (CAPEX) for the SWITCH hydrogen pilot plant is significant, given the project's scale. Operational expenses (OPEX) increase due to maintenance and energy consumption.
• The TEA analysis identifies that extending the stack lifetime and integrating renewable energy sources could reduce production costs. Sensitivity analysis identifies the variables most impacting the project's profitability, such as energy prices, stack lifetime, plant size, and market prices. For example, integrating photovoltaic (PV) panels and increase plant size can reduce overall costs per kilogram to 5 Euro/kg.
With regards to the activities related to design and construction of components:
• Cold BoP and purification section have been designed and built.
• The hot BoP Gamma was finalized, successfully integrating the SOE operating mode and successfully tested.
• The control system has been developed, the significative work of PLC/SPLC assembling and programming allowed to reach good results during the test campaigns in term of controllability and stability.
With regards to the activities related to LSM Design and Testing:
• A segmented cell-test characterization was performed by EPFL gaining insights to local thermal and electrochemical behaviour.
• A 1000 h durability test with daily switches between SOFC and SOE mode was performed. No severe damage was found in the post-test analysis, demonstrating that the switching-procedure used is safe and reliable.
• The thermal behaviour of a 70 cell-stack and the thermal control of it was successfully investigated by FBK, mapping the performance, and investigating on possible switching control strategies.
• A large stack module with 25 kWFC and about 77 kWEC was tested at DLR, successfully demonstrating the operation range and production capacity needed within this project.
• A transient model of the LSM was developed and validated by DLR for further investigations
With regards to the system construction and testing activities:
• The prototype has been tested for more than 1000 hours, the main operating modes (SOE and SOFCS modes) were tested.
• The testing results have shown, overall, good performance: a prototype efficiency of ca. 50 kWh/ kg H2 has been estimated in SOE mode
Communication, dissemination and exploitation activities were also implemented to valorise the results of the project:
• New communication materials were designed: the factsheets, final brochure and final video. They are available on SWITCH website
• In 2023, SWITCH received the Energy Globe Award and Elena Crespi (research involved in the SWITCH project) won the Young Scientist Award 2023. This resulted in numerous magazine and newspaper articles and high visibility.
• Final event was organised online, press releases was published.
• Internal exploitation workshops were organised to draw the exploitation pathways of SWITCH results.
Management activities continued throughout the whole reporting period.
