Integration of a solid oxide electrolysis system with solar thermal and electrical energy: A testing campaign for operation and control strategy definition

Abstract The EU project PROMETEO has the scope of testing a 25 kW solid oxide electrolysis system integrated with a concentrated solar power plant via thermal energy storage in a relevant environment. Given the plant layout and the hydrogen demand characteristics, this work aims to identify how to o...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Elena Crespi, Francesca Panaccione, Davide Ragaglia, Matteo Testi
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Wiley 2024-12-01
Series:IET Renewable Power Generation
Subjects:
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1049/rpg2.13141
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Abstract The EU project PROMETEO has the scope of testing a 25 kW solid oxide electrolysis system integrated with a concentrated solar power plant via thermal energy storage in a relevant environment. Given the plant layout and the hydrogen demand characteristics, this work aims to identify how to operate the system effectively when renewable electricity is unavailable and how to modulate the load during hydrogen generation, thus defining the system's operation modes and control strategy. A 5 kWe stack has been tested at the FBK facility. The hot standby tests show that feeding a reducing gas at the negative electrode and air at the positive electrode, without polarizing the stack, effectively keeps the stack hot at 750°C and prevents degradation. Conversely, the electric protection approach leads to significant stack degradation (15% voltage drop in 200 h for one cluster). Regarding modulation of hydrogen generation, with low steam flowrates, the stack current and the flow rate of produced hydrogen mainly depend on the steam flow rate, while it is not affected by the stack temperature; conversely, with high steam flowrates, the current depends only on the stack temperature (from 25 A at 670°C to 65 A at 760°C). Based on the results, two hot standby modes and two load control strategies to be implemented and tested in the PROMETEO prototype are proposed.
ISSN:1752-1416
1752-1424