Technoeconomic Analysis of PEC Water Splitting at Various Scales

Abstract

Hydrogen production via photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting represents a promising route to store intermittent solar energy in a versatile chemical energy carrier and could significantly contribute to a future sustainable energy infrastructure. The transition of a technology from the lab to a real plant, i.e. running a plant instead of running an experiment, involves numerous technical and economic aspects which need to be taken into account in order to achieve the final intention: economically viable, ecologically beneficial, and industrially applicable processes. This work refers to technoeconomic findings obtained within the EU project PECDEMO (2014–2017), which addressed hydrogen production in hybrid photoelectrochemical-photovoltaic (PEC-PV) tandem devices. Section 10.2 compiles some practical considerations and boundary conditions relevant for the realisation of extensive hydrogen production by PEC water splitting. Different hydrogen production and application scenarios, which cover a wide range of hydrogen production capacity, are considered.