Hydrogen production by coupling pressurized high temperature electrolyser with solar tower technology

Kurzfassung

Solar hydrogen production by coupling pressurized high temperature electrolyser with concentrated solar tower technology is studied. As the high temperature electrolyser needs constant temperature operation conditions, the focus is made on the molten salt solar tower due to its high storage capacity. Flow sheet has been elaborated and simulations have been carried out with the software Aspen Plus 8.4 for MW scaled-up hydrogen production plants. The solar part has been laid out with the software HFLCAL. Two different scenarios have been considered: the first one concerns the production of 400 kg/d hydrogen corresponding to a mobility scenario. The second scenario deals with the production of 4000 kg/d hydrogen for an industrial use. The process has been analyzed from a thermodynamic point of view by calculating the overall process efficiency. Taking into account the storage and a steam to hydrogen conversion of 50%, the process efficiency was calculated at 14% and the solar efficiency at 59.2%.