As a guide the capital cost of conventional electrolysers today are shown below. Due to the high capital cost of conventional electrolysers, hydrogen compressors the cost of delivered hydrogen delivered in cylinders is very high ranging from £150 up to 600/kg H2.
The lack of cost effective hydrogen compressors in small/medium scale influenced the electrolysers to be pressurised (10-20bars), which in turn increases the parts-counts of electrolysers adding a significant complexity.
However hydrogen compressors will still be required to go well beyond 20bar up to 350-700bar. This combination of 10bar pressurised stack and a 500bar compressor makes any small/medium scale hydrogen project unviable due to the individualised high costs. Engas Global resolved this problem by their own patented ultra low cost atmospheric electrolyser stack integrated with their unique hydrogen compressor offering the following features:
In this project called RESTORE (Retrofittable Propulsion System for Electric Vessels with Hydrogen Range Extender) Engas Global will create shoreside infrastructure of green hydrogen production, compression and delivery of green hydrogen at 500bar to refuel a hydrogen ship operating between Port of Blyth and Offshore wind farms along with other consortium partners. The RESTORE project will extend the operational range of CTVs (Crew transfer vessels) using hydrogen boosted propulsion to mitigate emissions at low cost.
Green maritime tech of the future to become reality thanks to £60 million boost - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
For more information refer to Multi-year clean maritime demonstration competition - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
Engas Global has installed its containerised electrolyser at a biogas CHP farm in Steyning, West Sussex to produce green hydrogen by operating the electrolyser 24/7 to increase the capacity utilisation factor of electrolysers as this will reduce the cost of green hydrogen significantly compared to solar-hydrogen production which operates at 30% time of the year. Engas Global's business model is to supply green hydrogen (and oxygen (water companies etc) locally within 5-25 miles distance using their modular, scalable electrolysers and hydrogen compressors.
Engas Global is bringing in Engas UK's new modular atmospheric electrolyser cells stacked up to 100kW/ stack. Multiples of 100kW stacks will be integrated up to 1MW scale electrolyser system fitted inside a 20 feet shipping container along with the balance of the plant for complete system integration. Engas Global is working towards setting up an assembly production line of up to to 35MW/year production capacity using these modular electrolysers. These electrolysers will be integrated with our high pressure compressor. Engas business model is to supply hydrogen and oxygen gas in pressurised cylinders or onsite generation as a service to the customers rather than selling the equipment.
Engas Global team is highly experienced in balance of plant system integration of electrolyser stacks, electrical systems, mechanical systems, hydraulic systems including ventilation, cooling/heating, hydrogen safety and regulatory compliance. This picture shown here is our own design of system integration of electrolyser stack, hydrogen compression up to 137bar etc.
Electrolysers will play a pivotal role to integrate more renewables with energy storage for heating and transport sectors. As more and more renewables are connected to the energy mix, there will be a widening mismatch of demand vs supply of electricity thus creating major opportunities for energy storage to reduce this gap. Surplus electricity will be stored into batteries and hydrogen in particular for bulk energy storage for longer duration. Hydrogen production powered by offshore wind farms for refuelling of ships, ferries and heavy goods vehicles or hybrid vehicles (battery+hydrogen fuel cells) brings a clear opportunity for hydrogen.
Engas is bringing in 1-3kW low pressure electrolysers for onsite hydrogen production integrated with a low pressure hydrogen storage tanks to potentially use for domestic-cooking eliminating the need for expensive LPG cylinders, or natural gas or firewood in many developing or developed countries.
Clean cooking using hydrogen: This solar-hydrogen cooking has the potential to address the very significant clean cooking challenges that over 2 billion people faces in the Africa, Asia and South America.
This Innovate UK funded unique hydrogen compressor capable of scrubbing KOH from hydrogen and then drying hydrogen alongside compressing in a single step whilst operating at close to 98% volumetric efficiency unlike any piston/diaphragm, centrifugal, screw, rotary type compressors. This will be a single phase low power, high pressure hydrogen compressor enabling home hydrogen refuelling combined with our smaller modular electrolysers producing up to 1kg hydrogen/day which is equivalent to drive up to 100-150 miles/kg hydrogen using a suitable fuel cell car.
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