On-site Green Hydrogen Production and Storage for Distributed Carbon Neutral Applications

Description

Here we propose a carbon neutral energy system for distributed applications.  In our system design, the energy flows from solar during daytime, which is partially used to power appliances and the rest is stored by proton exchange membrane water electrolyzer (PEMWE) and electrochemical hydrogen pump (EHP), while the hydrogen is converted to electricity at night to continuously power the appliances.  Contrary to most researches that only focus on reducing the hydrogen production cost, we aim to develop high performance electrolyzers to accomplish on-site hydrogen production, storage, and utilization, thus avoiding the delivery of hydrogen and refueling.  In our carbon neutral energy system, a PEMWE firstly converts the intermittent renewable electricity into hydrogen (3 MPa), then a coupled EHP compresses the hydrogen into high pressure gas tank (20 MPa) to finish hydrogen storage.  Fundamentally, both WE and EHP are electrolyzers and share some common materials and structures. Therefore, we would develop high performance WE and EHP based on materials design and engineering in this project.  The energy system can be applied in many appliances, such as around the clock surveillance, road light, HDB rooftop, island powering, etc as an energy storage technology, and can be further extended to offshore green hydrogen production and hydrogen refueling station.  Only electrochemical devices are involved in the energy system.  The absence of moving parts in the energy system helps achieving lifetime over 5 years.  Hong Kong is known for her clean environment, beautiful scenery and high labour cost, thus the long-lifetime, environmentally compatible and maintenance-free energy system particularly fits the application requirements of Hong Kong.