i n t e r n a t i o n a l j o u r n a l o f h y d r o g e n e n e r g y 4 6 ( 2 0 2 1 ) 3 7 1 2 0 e3 7 1 3 6

Available online at www.sciencedirect.com

ScienceDirect

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/he

Design considerations for industrial water

electrolyzer plants

€ schke a,*
Md Rizwan a, Vidar Alstad b, Johannes Ja
a
Department of Chemical Engineering, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, 7491, Trondheim, Norway
b
Yara Technology and Projects, Yara International ASA, Hydrovegen 67, 3936, Porsgrunn, Norway

highlights graphical abstract

For industrial plants sharing Separate BoP and power supply Shared BoP and power supply
systems systems
power supply and BoP between
stacks will reduce CAPEX. Low CAPEX with
shared BoP and

Poor design can severely reduce the power supply
systems
operational efficiency at different
loads.

Lye flow and cooling duty are key
manipulated variables to ensure Design
choices that
optimal operation. enhance
operational

Variable lye flow rate per stack can • Additional cooling capacity: Oversized heat
flexibility of
exchanger in lye circulation loop improves the
shared design
increase the production by 8-12 % performance of the degraded electrolyzers.

alone. • Variable lye flowrate: 8-12 % higher hydrogen

production w.r.t fixed lye flowrate (shown

Operational loss due to varying with dashed lines in the plot)
input electrical power depends on
operating load.

article info abstract

Article history: The motivation of this work is to propose a shared balance of plant (BoP) and power supply
Received 11 July 2021 (PS) design for industrial scale alkaline electrolyzer plant that has reduced CAPEX with a
Received in revised form minimum loss in OPEX for variable load operation. Three important aspects are: a) flow-
28 August 2021 sheet - either shared or individual BoP and PS per stack, b) variable or constant lye flowrate
Accepted 3 September 2021 per stack and c) sizing of cooling duty in the lye circulation loop. Steady-state optimization
Available online 30 September 2021 shows that individual BoP per stack (with higher CAPEX) is optimal when the plant is ex-
pected to operate at high capacity. For shared BoP and PS, the hydrogen production is
Keywords: higher by 8e12% when operated with variable lye flowrate compared to fixed lye flowrate.
Alkaline water electrolysis Our results further suggest that lye cooling duty should be designed based on the cooling
Large scale hydrogen production requirements of the degraded electrolyzer stacks at end of life.
Flexible operation © 2021 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of Hydrogen Energy Publications
Optimal flowsheet design LLC. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/
Flowsheet selection licenses/by/4.0/).

* Corresponding author.
€ schke).
E-mail address: johannes.jaschke@ntnu.no (J. Ja
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhydene.2021.09.018
0360-3199/© 2021 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of Hydrogen Energy Publications LLC. This is an open access article under the CC BY
license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
 i n t e r n a t i o n a l j o u r n a l o f h y d r o g e n e n e r g y 4 6 ( 2 0 2 1 ) 3 7 1 2 0 e3 7 1 3 6
Introduction
Hydrogen is an integral part of modern chemical industry.
Demand for hydrogen in oil refining, ammonia production,
methanol production and steel production has grown signifi-
cantly and continues to rise. Hydrogen is light, storable,
energy-dense, and produces no direct emissions of pollutants
or greenhouse gases. However, hydrogen is not available in its
pure form in the nature. Currently, hydrogen is almost
entirely produced from fossil fuels ([1e3]). As a consequence,
production of hydrogen is responsible for CO2 emissions of
around 830 million tonnes of carbon dioxide per year [4].
Hydrogen can be produced from renewable sources in the
form of biomass [5e8] and through processes utilizing water
such as electrolysis, thermal decomposition and photo-
catalytic decomposition [9]. Hydrogen from water electrol-
ysis process uses direct electrochemical splitting of water into
hydrogen and oxygen (2H2O ¼ 2H2 þ O2), using water electro-
lyzer system. Hence the electrolytic hydrogen offers a poten-
tial benefit of producing carbon free hydrogen often termed as
green hydrogen. Despite being relatively expensive, in recent
years electrolytic hydrogen is enjoying increased interest
around the world because of declining costs for renewable
electricity, in particular from solar PV and wind. There is
growing hope that electrolytic hydrogen can now finally fulfil
hydrogen's longstanding potential as a clean energy carrier [4].
The three main water electrolysis technologies available
today are alkaline water electrolysis (AEL), polymer electrolyte
membrane (PEMEL) and solid oxide electrolyte (SOEL) [5,9,10].
Both AEL and PEMEL are low temperature technologies and
provide higher technology readiness levels compared to the
SOEL technology which is still in development stage [11]. For
large scale application, the investment costs and the lifetime
determine whether AEL or PEMEL is the most favorable system
design [12]. The current reported investment costs for AEL are
from 800 to 1500 V/kW and for PEMEL from 1400 to 2100 V/KW
[12]. Furthermore, the lifetime and the annual maintenance
costs of alkaline water electrolyzers are lower compared to a
PEMEL system [10,13e15]. Therefore, the alkaline water elec-
trolysis is considered as most mature and durable technology,
especially for large-scale and long-term renewable H2 pro-
duction [16,17]. Hence, this paper focuses on alkaline water
electrolysis technology and aims to shed insights into
important aspects of the development of large scale industrial
hydrogen production plants. We provide an answer to three
key questions related to the optimal design of large scale
electrolyzer plant flowsheet. These are.

Q1: Choice of the flowsheet layout (BoP and power sys-
tems) - Should electrolyzer stacks in the plant have shared
or separate balance of plant (BoP) and power systems?

Q2: Variability of the circulating lye flowrate - Should
electrolyzer plant have fixed or a variable lye circulation
flowrate?

Q3: Sizing of the heat exchanger in the lye circulation loop -
What should be the design basis of the heat exchanger in
lye circulation loop?
37121
In the literature, several demonstration projects are re-
ported on hydrogen production. Most projects consume power
in the kilowatt (kW) range, an early one among them is the
HYSOLAR project in 1986 [18]. More recent projects for inte-
gration of electrolytic hydrogen to renewable energy sources
are present in the United States, Canada, Germany, Italy,
Norway, Japan, Spain, Finland and United Kingdom [19,20].
Historically, the most extensively investigated pathways
include hydrogen to power (HtP) and hydrogen to fuel (HtF)
applications [21,22]. Both wind powered hydrogen production
systems [23e25], as well as solar energy based electrolyzer
systems are studied [26e30]. The most studied electrolyzer
systems in these demonstration projects involve alkaline
electrolysis at atmospheric pressure, intermediate pressure
(4e30 bar), and even very high pressure (448 bar). These pro-
jects mostly discuss their experiences of generating power
from hydrogen using fuel cells (HtP) and hydrogen for trans-
port and mobility sector (HtF).
In addition to the demonstration projects, several authors
have presented mathematical models to describe water elec-
trolyzer plants [31e35]. David et al. [31] proposed a phenom-
enological based semiphysical model to replicate the current
dynamic response of the experimental self-pressurized elec-
trolyzer assembly. The current-voltage relationship which
describes the performance characteristic of an electrolyzer
stack was not developed in this work. They reported to use
this experimentally validated model as a simulator and as a
source for model reduction in order to design control strate-
gies. Persson et al. [32] presented an electrolyzer model which
was validated and tested from plant data of a 250 kW PEM
electrolyzer at Bright Green Hydrogen's Levenmouth Com-
munity Energy Project in Methil, Scotland. They concluded
that this model can be applied to other commercial electro-
lyzers of similar type by readjusting the parameters and is
useful for whole system modelling for future planning and
optimization. Amores et al. [33] investigated electrolyte con-
centration and electrode/diaphragm distance in the conjunc-
tion with the electrochemical and thermodynamic effects in
the Ulleberg's model [36] to propose a new model for alkaline
water electrolyzer. They introduced two new parameters in
Ulleberg's model to take into account the effect of electrolyte
concentration and distance between electrodes. The model
parameters were estimated, and model was subsequently
validated using the experiments at a laboratory scale alkaline
water electrolysis system under atmospheric conditions.
In this work we use the Ulleberg's model to model the
electrolyzer as it is well known and tested semi empirical
model and several studies have used it or based new models
from it [37e39]. To use hydrogen for industry applications,
large scale hydrogen production systems involving overall
power consumption in megawatt (MW) are required. For
example energy intensive industrial processes, like ammonia
production, steelmaking and oil refining offers significant
decarbonisation potential if the electrolytic hydrogen pro-
duced using renewable energy sources is utilized in these
processes [40]. Such a transition from conventional steam
methane reforming (SMR) generated hydrogen to green
hydrogen requires large scale hydrogen production plants
37122 i n t e r n a t i o n a l j o u r n a l o f h y d r o g e n e n e r g y 4 6 ( 2 0 2 1 ) 3 7 1 2 0 e3 7 1 3 6
consisting of several hundreds of electrolyzer stacks in giga-
watt (GW) range.
This paper continues to develop and expand the work
presented in the scientific literature on the optimal design of
large-scale water electrolyzer plants. Niaz et al. [41] presented
a mixed integer dynamic optimization (MIDO) approach for
estimating the optimal size and approximate cost of stand-
alone renewable energy powered electrolyzer for hydrogen
production at any given location. The proposed hybrid system
by Niaz et al. was connected to a battery energy storage sys-
tem (BESS) to ensure the electrolyzer's operation with no
support from the grid electricity. The optimal size for such a
BESS was determined by solving a MIDO problem that mini-
mize the levelized cost of hydrogen. Along the similar lines,
Varela et al. [42] developed a novel scheduling model for AEL
to find the optimal number of electrolyzer and production
schedules to fulfill the process goals for a given energy sce-
nario. They presented mathematical description of the oper-
ational states, their transitions, and main operational
characteristics of AEL, to compute the energy absorption,
production of hydrogen, and costs at production level. How-
ever, their model was limited to the calculation at production
level as the phenomena within the electrolysis cell were not
directly computed.
The objective of this work is to investigate how to design a
shared BoP and power supply system that minimizes the
negative effect of sharing on operational flexibility and per-
formance. The electrolyzer stacks in this work are assumed at
different stages of their lifetime and hence have non identical
performance due to aging.
The novelty of the electrolyzer plant flowsheet design in
this work is characterized by sharing of BoP and power supply
systems between the electrolyzer stacks that reduces CAPEX
with minimum loss in OPEX. We answer the three questions
Q1, Q2 and Q3 to address related challenges of such a shared
flowsheet design for a large-scale electrolyzer system with
multiple stacks operating at variable load.
This paper is structured as follows: the Process description
and plant model development section introduces the reader to
the electrolyzer plant flowsheet and the simplified model
developed in this study. Thereafter, Section Steady state
optimization problem describes the optimization problem
used for systematic comparison of the flowsheet designs. The
Results section outlines the findings from our steady state
optimization simulation study. Thereafter, the Discussion
section adresses the impact of key modelling assumptions
on the stated results. Finally, the Conclusion section gathers
the observations from our comparative study of different
flowsheet configurations.
Process description and plant model
development
In this section we begin by introducing reader to a simplified
electrolyzer plant flowsheet which consist of four sub-
processes, i.e. electrolyzer stacks, lye circulation system,
compressors, and the gas storage system. The later part of this
section discusses the mathematical model of the electrolyzer
plant.
Process description
The electrolyzer plant (Fig. 1) receives renewable power from a
solar or wind farm which is adjusted to the desired voltage Vel
by a transformer and converted to direct current by a rectifier
before sending it to the electrolyzer stacks. The peak load
from the renewable power system is assumed to be 6.7 MW. In
the electrolyzer stacks the water is decomposed to produce
hydrogen and oxygen according to following electrolysis
reaction:
1
H2 OðlÞ þ electrical energy/H2 ðgÞ þ O2 ðgÞ (1)
2
The gas-liquid lye mixture from anodic and cathodic
chambers of the electrolyzer stack is separated in two gas
separators downstream. The gases (H2 and O2) exit from
respective separators and are cooled and stored in storage
tanks downstream. The electrolyte from the gas separators is
collected in a small buffer tank present in the lye circulation
loop. Additional water is added to lye in the buffer tank to
replenish the water consumed during electrolysis. The outlet
stream from the buffer tank is pumped and cooled in a
shared heat exchanger and is returned to the electrolyzer
stacks.
In this work, the BoP and power systems for the electro-
lyzer plant include the separators, buffer tank, pump and
cooler in the lye circulation loop and the rectifier and trans-
former. In this study we assume a direct coupling of the
electrolyzer stack to the power production system and regard
input power as a disturbance to the system (see Discussion
Section for details). In all flowsheet designs we assume that
the lye flow rates qlye,1, qlye,2 and qlye,3 are manipulated indi-
vidually. This implies that changing any one of them will
change the total lye flowrate across the electrolyzer assembly.
To keep the complexity low and clearly illustrate our re-
sults we consider flowsheets consisting of three electrolyzer
stacks (see Figs. 1 and 2). Note that this does limit the
generalizability of the answers to Q1 - Q3 because the in-
sights developed extend to flowsheet with more electrolyzer
stacks (see Discussion). The flowsheet with separate BoP and
power systems Fseparate (Fig. 2) represents the simplest design
strategy in which the single electrolyzer modules (for
example atmospheric alkaline electrolyzer A150 from Nel
Hydrogen [43]) are directly connected to produce the
required hydrogen for large scale industrial processes. This
design is the most capital intensive design as each electro-
lyzer stack has its individual BoP and power systems and
thus higher investment costs are needed. On the contrary,
the flowsheet with shared BoP and power system (i.e. Fshared)
can provide a system with lower CAPEX because in this
flowsheet layout, multiple electrolyzer stacks can share the
BoP and power supply systems.
In Section Steady state optimization problem, a nonlinear
optimization problem is formulated which provides a basis to
decide the trade-off between the low CAPEX and the loss in
 i n t e r n a t i o n a l j o u r n a l o f h y d r o g e n e n e r g y 4 6 ( 2 0 2 1 ) 3 7 1 2 0 e3 7 1 3 6
Fig. 1 e Fshared: Simplified flowsheet for state of the art electrolyzer plant with shared BoP and power systems.
plant performance because of shared systems. The findings
from this comparison study are presented in Results Section.
Plant model development
Here we discuss the mathematical model of the electrolyzer
plant. In the developed mathematical model of the electro-
lyzer plant, the underlying sub-processes i.e. electrolyzer
stacks, lye circulation system, compressor and the gas storage
system are modelled independently. For brevity and to keep
focus on the flowsheet selection problem, we only discuss the
electrolyzer stack and heat exchanger model in detail and
remaining sub-processes are described in brief. The reader
can find complete description of the lye circulation system,
compressor and gas storage systems in Appendix A.
Electrolyzer stacks
The electrolyzer stack model in this work is based on the
empirical correlations provided by Ulleberg [36]. The electro-
lyzer stack is subject to coupled thermodynamic, electro-
chemical and thermal effects.
The reversible cell voltage, Urev is defined as the electro-
motive force for a reversible electrochemical process and is
expressed as
37123
DG
Urev ¼ : (2)
zF
Here, DG represents change in Gibbs free energy, z is the
number of electrons transferred in the electrochemical pro-
cess and F is Faraday constant. Electrolysis of water is non-
spontaneous at standard conditions therefore DG is positive.
The total energy needed for electrolysis to happen is equiva-
lent to change in enthalpy DH. The change in Gibbs free en-
ergy, DG, includes thermal irreversibilities, TDS, which is equal
to heat demand of a reversible process (as DG ¼ DH - TDS). The
cell voltage at which supplied energy participates both in DG
and TDS is referred to as thermoneutral cell voltage, Utn. It is
expressed as
DH
Utn ¼ : (3)
zF
In Ulleberg's model [36], the cell voltage (Uk) of an electro-
lyzer cell of the kth electrolyzer stack when direct current is
supplied through it is expressed as sum of reversible cell
voltage (Urev) and ohmic and activation overvoltages i.e.
Uk ¼ Urev þ Uohm þ Uact : (4)
37124 i n t e r n a t i o n a l j o u r n a l o f h y d r o g e n e n e r g y 4 6 ( 2 0 2 1 ) 3 7 1 2 0 e3 7 1 3 6

Fig. 2 e Fseparate: Electrolyzer plant flowsheet with separate BoP and power systems.

The ohmic overvoltages, Uohm (see second term on right current densities, a logarithmic relationship is observed
hand side in Equation (5)) are because of the ohmic losses in which suggests that activation phenomena are predominant
the cell elements (electrodes, current collectors, in- while at higher current densities ohmic losses are dominant.
terconnections, etc.). While activation overvoltages, Uact (see At higher temperatures for a given current density reversible
last term on right hand side in Equation (5)) are due to elec- cell voltage, ohmic overvoltage and activation overvoltages
trode kinetics as charge transfer between chemical species are reduced, which also reduces cell voltage.
and electrodes need energy. The performance of the electro- At cell voltages lower than Urev, cell current is zero and
lyzer cell is modelled using following empirical voltage- electrolysis cannot take place. The cell voltage Uk for electrol-
current relationship proposed by Ulleberg [36]: ysis reaction is always higher than the reversible cell voltage
0 1 Urev because of process irreversibilities, and as a result water
t þ
t2;k
þ
t3;k electrolysis is accompanied by the release of heat despite being
r1;k þ r2;k Tk B 1;k Tk 2
Tk C
Uk ¼ Urev þ Ik þ sk log10 B
@ Ik þ 1 C
A: (5) an endothermic reaction. The rate of heat generated by the
A A
electrolyzer is directly proportional to the difference between
the cell voltage and the thermoneutral voltage i.e (Uk  Utn).
Here, k in the subscript refers to the kth electrolyzer stack, An industrial electrolyzer plant will likely consist of elec-
r1,k, r2,k are ohmic resistance parameters, sk, t1,k, t2,k and t3,k are trolyzer stacks that are at different stages in their lifetime due
coefficients corresponding to activation overvoltages, and A is to different degradation profiles. Hence, the three electro-
the electrode area. The voltage - current curve (see Fig. 3) lyzers in this study are also assumed to be at different stages
characterizes the performance of an electrolyzer cell. At lower of their lifetime (i.e new, 51% degraded and 80% degraded).
 i n t e r n a t i o n a l j o u r n a l o f h y d r o g e n e n e r g y 4 6 ( 2 0 2 1 ) 3 7 1 2 0 e3 7 1 3 6 37125

Water consumed during electrolysis to produce hydrogen

and oxygen can be calculated from stoichiometry using
Equation (1) and Equation (7), i.e.

n_H2 O;k ¼ n_H2 ;k ¼ 2n_O2 ;k : (8)

The energy balance for an electrolyzer is written per

stack basis using lumped thermal capacitance model. The
schematic of electrolyzer is shown in Fig. 4. The energy
balance over the control volume, shown with dashed lines
in Fig. 4 is:

dEk
¼ H_ in;k  H_ out;k þ Q_ gen;k  Q_ loss;k : (9)
dt
Here dEdtk is the energy accumulated in the electrolyzer stack,
_
Hin;k is the thermal enthalpy of the incoming lye solution, H _ out;k
Fig. 3 e Performance characteristics of the electrolyzer
is the enthalpy of outlet streams leaving the anodic and
stacks considered in this study. Electrolyzer 1 is the best
cathodic sections of the electrolyzer. Q_ gen;k is the internal heat
performing electrolyzer while Electrolyzer 3 is
representative of the electrolyzer with 80% degradation. generated in the electrolyzer when operating at cell voltages
The dashed magenta lines show the minimum and higher than thermoneutral voltage (Utn). Hence, Q_ gen;k ¼
maximum current density during plant operation. (For nc ðUk  Utn ÞIk , nc is the number of cells in the electrolyzer
interpretation of the references to color in this figure stack, Uk is the cell voltage and Ik is current passing through
legend, the reader is referred to the Web version of this the electrolyzer. The last term, Q_ loss;k is the total heat loss to
article.) the ambient by convection and radiation which is given by
Ref. [44],
This degradation is represented by choosing different values Q_ loss;k Q_ conv;k Q_ rad;k
As
¼ As
þ As
of the ohmic and activation overvoltage parameters. The
Q_ loss;k   (10)
electrolyzer 1 is a new electrolyzer at the beginning of the ¼ hc ðTk  Ta Þ þ sε T4k  T4a :
lifetime while the electrolyzer 3 represents an 80% degraded As
electrolyzer coming to the end of the lifetime. The best per- Q_ conv;k and Q_ rad;k are the heat loss to surrounding by
forming electrolyzer has lowest cell voltage for a given current convection and radiation respectively. As is the active area
density and thus has highest electrical efficiency because of for radiation and convection, hc is the convective heat
lower power requirements (Fig. 3). The voltage - current curve transfer coefficient reported to be 5.5[W/m2, K] for large
parameters for these electrolyzer stacks are given in Appendix scale electrolyzers by Kojima [45], s is the Stefan-Boltzmann
B. constant, 5.67  108[W/m2K4] and ε is the emissivity con-
The Faraday efficiency is defined as the ratio between the stant. Emissivity ε is assumed to be 0.8 and the area of
actual and theoretical maximum amount of hydrogen pro- radiating surface As is taken to be 0.1 m2/kA, cell of nominal
duced in an electrolyzer. It is also referred to as current effi- current [46].
ciency and is caused by the parasitic current losses and the Hence, the energy balance for the electrolyzer is written as:
contamination of electrolyte because of dissolution of H2 in O2.
dEk
The fraction of parasitic currents to total current increases dt
¼ Ct;k dT
dt
k

with decreasing current densities. Also, an increase in tem- dEk   

¼ qlye;k Cp;lye TElin  Tk þ nC ðUk  Utn ÞIk  As hc ðTk  Ta Þ
perature reduces resistance, hence parasitic current increases dt
 
which in turn lowers the Faraday efficiency. For a given tem- þsε T4k  T4a : (11)
perature, Faraday efficiency is described by the following
empirical relation [36]

ðIk =AÞ2
hFk ¼ f2;k : (6)
f1;k þ ðIk =AÞ2

Here, f1,k and f2,k are parameters related to the Faraday

efficiency, A is the electrode area and Ik is the current through
the cell of kth electrolyzer stack. According to Faraday's law,
hydrogen production rate in an electrolyzer cell is propor-
tional to transfer rate of electrons at the electrodes which is
also equivalent to the electrical current in the external circuit.
Hence, the hydrogen production rate in an electrolyzer stack
is given as:

nC Ik
n_H2;k ¼ hF;k : (7) Fig. 4 e Schematic diagram of an electrolyzer stack.
zF
37126 i n t e r n a t i o n a l j o u r n a l o f h y d r o g e n e n e r g y 4 6 ( 2 0 2 1 ) 3 7 1 2 0 e3 7 1 3 6
Here, Ct,k is the overall thermal capacity of the kth electro-
lyzer stack. The ambient temperature (Ta) is assumed 20  C for
all calculations and Tk is the electrolyzer temperature. We
assume there is no mass accumulation inside the anodic and
cathodic chambers of the cell, and the heat capacity of inlet
and outlet lye streams are assumed to be equal as the change
in concentration of the liquid phase is negligible.
The separation of lye and the produced gases (i.e. H2 and
O2) from anodic and cathodic chambers happen in the gas
separators. The separation process is assumed to be ideal to
keep the model simple and hence, all the losses are neglected.
Heat exchanger
The heat exchanger in the lye circulation loop has counter
current flow of hot and cold fluids (see Fig. 5) and is used to
cool the lye before it is sent back to the electrolyzers.
The equations for energy balances on the hot and cold side
of the heat exchanger are [47]:
  dTElin  
rlye Vh Cp;lye ¼ qlye Cp;lye Tbtout  TElin  UAHX DTLMTD
dt
  dTcwout  
rcw Vc Cp;cw ¼ qcw Cp;cw Tcw;in  Tcw;out þ UAHX DTLMTD :
dt
Here, subscript h and c denotes the hot and the cold streams
respectively. Further, rcw is the density of the cooling water, Vh
and Vc are the volumes of the hot and cold side of the heat
exchanger respectively, Cp is the heat capacity [J/g.K], qcw is the
mass flow rate of cooling water [g/s], U is the heat transfer
coefficient, and AHX is the heat exchanger area. DTLMTD is the
logarithmic mean temperature difference (LMTD) for counter-
current flow and is given by
 
ðTbtout  Tcwout Þ  TElin  Tcwin
DTLMTD ¼   : (14)
T Tcw
ln TbtElout Tcwout
in in
The design of the cooling capacity in the lye circulation
loop is directly related to the heat exchanger size (i.e. UAHX
value). Appendix D discusses the calculation of the heat
exchanger size for new electrolyzer stacks (i.e. HX0) and 80%
degraded electrolyzer stacks (i.e. HX80).
The hydrogen and oxygen obtained from the electrolyzer
stacks are at atmospheric pressure and therefore, a
compressor is needed to compress these gases for storage at
high pressure. For the developed electrolyzer plant model, a
variable speed centrifugal compressor is considered. The
performance of this centrifugal compressor is calculated
based on a polytropic compression step. The gases in the
storage tanks are assumed to be ideal and storage pressure is
Fig. 5 e Schematic diagram of counter-current flow heat
exchanger.
calculated using ideal gas law at isothermal conditions. The
reader is referred to Appendix A for detailed discussion on
modelling of the remaining subsystems and the assumptions
considered for the plant model development.
The electrolyzer plant model parameters are estimated
based on the specifications from the supplier [43] and state of
the art CAPEX data for alkaline water electrolyzers by Proost
[48]. All the design parameters used in this work for modelling
the electrolyzer plant are given in Appendix C.
Steady state optimization problem
In this section we introduce the reader to the steady state
optimization problem that we use to systematically compare
the flowsheet designs. The nonlinear optimization problem is
solved for different values of input power to find maximum
overall hydrogen production. The results of this optimization
problem for different flowsheet designs provide the basis to
(12) compare their performances. This optimization problem is
formulated as:
X
N
max n_H2 ;k
qlye;k ; UEl;k ; qcw ; zH2 ; zO2
k¼1
(13)
s:t: Plant Model
   (15)
32  Iden;k mA cm2  198:5 ck2f1; 2; 3g
25  Tk ½ C  80 ck2f1; 2; 3g
Tk  TEl;in ½ C  30 ck2f1; 2; 3g
The optimization problem is subjected to process con-
straints on Iden,k, Tk and TEl,in. In this work N ¼ 3 as we consider
three electrolyzer stacks in the plant. Iden,k is the current density
of the kth electrolyzer stack and should be within the safe
limits. At lower current densities, there are technological
challenges related to alkaline water electrolysis as the
hydrogen concentration in oxygen can increase to dangerous
levels (lower explosion limit of hydrogen in oxygen is >4%) [49].
While at higher current density the increased gas production
rate results in rapid bubble formation which increases the
overpotential due to the greater bubble resistance [50]. The high
temperature in the electrolyzer reduces the equilibrium
voltage. However the higher operating temperature put strin-
gent demands for materials for the structural integrity because
of the corrosive effects of the electrolyte [50]. Additionally, the
inlet lye stream into the electrolyzer should be sufficiently hot
so that temperature gradients inside the electrolyzer can be
avoided. This is achieved by ensuring that the temperature
difference between the inlet lye temperature (TEl,in) and elec-

trolyzer temperature (Tk) is always less than 30 C.
Also the electrolyzer plant is subjected to constraints on
the operational decision variables:
. .
0:5 kg s  qlye;k  10kg s ck2f1; 2; 3g
X
N
PEl;k  Pnet ck2f1; 2; 3g
k¼1
 
0 kg s  qcw  80 kg s
0  zH2  1 (16)
0  zO2  1
 i n t e r n a t i o n a l j o u r n a l o f h y d r o g e n e n e r g y 4 6 ( 2 0 2 1 ) 3 7 1 2 0 e3 7 1 3 6
qlye,k is the lye flowrate at the inlet of the kth electrolyzer, PEl,k is
the power consumption by the kth electrolyzer stack, here
electrolyzer stack voltage UEl,k is used as a degree of freedom
to maintain the total power balance (Pnet) of the electrolyzer
stacks, qcw is the cooling water flow rate in the heat exchanger
present in the lye circulation loop and zH2 ; zO2 are the outlet
valve openings for the hydrogen and oxygen storage tanks. For
the flowsheet with the separated BoP and power systems
(Fseparate) the maximum limit on the cooling water flowrate is
1/3rd of the shared BoP case since each electrolyzer stack has
its individual cooler and lye circulation system. Thus the input
constraints for Fseparate (shown in Fig. 2) are:
. .
0:5 kg s  qlye;k  10kg s ck2f1; 2; 3g
X
N
PEl;k  Pnet ck2f1; 2; 3g
k¼1
. .
0 kg s  qcw;k  26:67 kg s ck2f1; 2; 3g
0  zH2  1 (17)
0  zO2  1
Results
In this section we answer the three key questions Q1-Q3 using
the results of the optimization problem described earlier.
Q1 - Flowsheet performance with shared or separate BoP
and power systems
Choice of the flowsheet layout is decided by comparing the
overall hydrogen production by Fshared and Fseparate flowsheet
designs. We use the relative loss in overall hydrogen produc-
tion (lr) for the comparison, the lr is defined as:
n_H2 ;Fseperate  n_H2 ;Fshared
lr ¼ : (18)
n_H2 ;Fseparate
The results from optimization problem are shown in Fig. 6
which shows the relative loss in production (lr) with respect to
the available power input. Here it is assumed that the lye
flowrate for each stack can be used as a degree of freedom.
The non-negative loss (lr [%]) in Fig. 6 shows that flowsheet
Fseparate has higher hydrogen production rate than flowsheet
Fshared. The relative loss in production is largest at maximum
input power, i.e. 6.7 MW because flowsheet Fshared has lower
maximum power consumption than flowsheet Fseparate. This
observation holds true irrespective of heat exchanger design
basis (i.e. HX0 and HX80).
The maximum power for flowsheet Fshared corresponds to
the input power after which we observe a steep increase in the
lr% (see red dashed line at 5.8 MW and blue dashed line at
5.5 MW in Fig. 6). For the flowsheet Fshared electrolyzer stacks
are connected in parallel and therefore they operate across a
common electrical potential difference. This potential differ-
ence is governed by the voltage across the best performing
electrolyzer stack (as shown by the horizontal green line in
Fig. 7). Hence, when the best performing electrolyzer stack
reaches the constraint on maximum current density then the
degraded electrolyzers are restricted to operate at a lower
current density corresponding to the common voltage in this
37127
Fig. 6 e Relative loss in overall hydrogen production, lr for
flowsheet Fshared and flowsheet Fseparate. Here HX0 and
HX80 denotes heat exchanger sizing for electrolyzer stack
cooling requirements at beginning of life (i.e. 0% degraded)
and when it is 80% degraded respectively. Dotted vertical
lines represent maximum power consumption of the
flowsheet Fseparate for a given heat exchanger size which is
higher than the maximum power consumption for the
flowsheet Fshared shown with dashed vertical lines.
shared flowsheet design. Therefore, the flowsheet Fshared has
lower maximum power consumption than the flowsheet
Fseparate. The flowsheet Fseparate operate at higher input power
and produces more hydrogen. The maximum power con-
sumption for flowsheet Fseparate is 6.5 MW with HX80 (see the
red dotted line in Fig. 6), which is 0.7 MW higher than
maximum power consumption flowsheet Fshared with iden-
tical heat exchanger size. Also note that the lr is 100% for lower
input power (between 1.1 and 1.2 MW), this corresponds to the
situation when there is no feasible solution for flowsheet
Fshared while flowsheet Fseparate is still feasible (Fig. 6). This
confirms that flowsheet Fseparate has higher operational flexi-
bility compared to the flowsheet Fshared.
The decision on the choice of BoP and power system is
dependent on the nature of the renewable input power to the
electrolyzer plant. In a scenario where the power from the
renewable energy source (most likely wind energy farm) is
expected to be less than the installed capacity, (for example
below 5.8 MW for the installed capacity of 6.7 MW) the elec-
trolyzer plant with shared BoP and power system should be
selected. This work compares the electrolyzer stacks that are
degraded and have different performance characteristics but
it is also worth noting that at the start of the production the
electrolyzer stacks have matching performance and the ben-
efits of the separate flowsheet design over shared design will
be negligible. Such a situation will make the shared flowsheet
design even more attractive.
Also interestingly, for input power values less than the
maximum power consumption of flowsheet Fshared, the rela-
tive loss in the production is almost zero. This suggests that
both the flowsheet designs have near-identical performances
at all these low input powers whenever flowsheet Fshared has a
feasible solution (Fig. 6). Thus, if the input power from the
renewable energy source is available in this range
37128 i n t e r n a t i o n a l j o u r n a l o f h y d r o g e n e n e r g y 4 6 ( 2 0 2 1 ) 3 7 1 2 0 e3 7 1 3 6
Fig. 7 e Performance characteristics (UeI curve) of the
electrolyzer stacks in this study. The horizontal green line
represents the operating voltage of electrolyzer stacks in
flowsheet designs with shared BoP and power systems. In
shared flowsheet (Fshared) the electrolyzer stacks are
connected in parallel configuration and hence operate
across a common potential difference governed by the best
performing electrolyzer stack (i.e. Electrolyzer 1 in this
study). Dashed magenta lines show minimum and
maximum operating current density. (For interpretation of
the references to color in this figure legend, the reader is
referred to the Web version of this article.)
(1.2e5.5 MW) then the electrolyzer plant with shared BoP and
power systems is the logical choice. Therefore, we conclude
that higher capital investments for flowsheet Fseparate will pay
off only when the electrolyzer stacks are degraded and the
electrolyzer plant is operating at input powers higher than the
maximum power for flowsheet Fshared. For rest of the oper-
ating situations the shared flowsheet (Fshared) is the most
optimal flowsheet design.
Q2: Impact of the variable inlet lye flowrate on steady state
performance
Impact of the variability of the lye circulation flowrate is
described by comparing the hydrogen production of a given
flowsheet design with fix and varying inlet lye flowrate. From
the results we see that the flowsheet design with separate BoP
and power systems (Fseparate) having heat exchanger design
based on the cooling demand at 80% degradation (HX80) is the
flowsheet design with highest overall hydrogen production.
Therefore it is considered as basis to compare remaining
flowsheet designs to highlight the loss in production incurred
because of fixed inlet lye flowrate (see Fig. 8).
Fixing the inlet lye flowrate to each electrolyzer stack re-
duces the flexibility of the plant which decreases the overall
hydrogen production. The loss in production for flowsheet
with shared BoP and power systems (i.e. Fshared) increases by
around 8e12% when inlet lye flowrate is fixed (see red and
blue plots in Fig. 8). This loss in production is irrespective of
the heat exchanger size in flowsheet Fshared. On the contrary,
Fig. 8 e Loss comparison of all the flowsheet designs w.r.t.
flowsheet design having highest overall hydrogen
production. Solid lines represent the flowsheet designs
having variable inlet lye flowrate while dashed lines
correspond to the flowsheet designs with fixed inlet lye
flowrate.
the effect of fixing inlet lye flowrate on the overall hydrogen
production in flowsheet Fseparate is insignificant (see black and
magenta plots in Fig. 8), the maximum increment in loss is
only around 1.3%. With fixed inlet lye flowrate the electrolyzer
stacks in flowsheet Fseparate use individual cooling water
flowrate qcw to control the inlet lye temperature TElin and
therefore avoid becoming constrained by limit on electrolyzer
temperature (i.e. Tk < 80). Thus, the electrolyzer stacks in the
flowsheet Fseparate are able to operate at higher voltage and
thereby produce more hydrogen even when the circulating lye
flowrate is fixed.
Hence it is concluded that if the input power from the
renewable energy source is close to maximum installed ca-
pacity (for example more than 5 MW for the 6.7 MW installed
capacity in this study) fixing input lye flowrate is near-optimal
for the plant flowsheet with separate BoP systems and can
potentially simplify the control structure design later. How-
ever, for plant flowsheet design with a shared BoP and power
system, the losses because of fixed lye flowrate are significant
at higher input power (around 8e12%). In this flowsheet (i.e.
Fshared) all the electrolyzer stacks have same inlet lye tem-
perature (TElin ) and fixed lye circulation flowrate constrains the
heat that can be removed from the system (since maximum

_ in  H
outlet temperature Tk ¼ 80 C and H _ out ¼ qlye;k Cp;lye ðTEl 
in
Tk Þ). Therefore, fixing the inlet lye flowrate for the electrolyzer
stacks in the flowsheet with shared BoP and power systems is
a bad idea and is not recommended. The varying lye circula-
tion flowrate provides an additional degree of freedom to
manage the heat removal which helps to increase the
hydrogen production for the shared flowsheet design. Never-
theless the effect of the variability of the inlet lye flowrate on
the maximum hydrogen production is negligible at lower
input power (i.e. below 5 MW in this work). Therefore, this
study recommends to operate the plant at varying lye
 i n t e r n a t i o n a l j o u r n a l o f h y d r o g e n e n e r g y 4 6 ( 2 0 2 1 ) 3 7 1 2 0 e3 7 1 3 6
circulation flowrate if flowsheet Fshared is selected and higher
input power is expected.
Q3: Effect of cooling capacity in the lye circulation loop on
the steady state performance
Effect of cooling capacity in the lye circulation loop is dis-
cussed by comparing hydrogen production from both the
flowsheet designs (i.e. Fshared and Fseparate) for different heat
exchanger sizes. The maximum hydrogen production by the
flowsheet designs Fseparate and Fshared with different heat
exchanger size is shown in Table 1. The maximum hydrogen
production is higher for larger heat exchanger size. This is
because as electrolyzer stack is degraded (i.e. electrolyzer 2
and 3 in this study), it will generate more heat because of
reduced energy efficiency (see Fig. 9 for specific electricity
consumption of three electrolyzers which is inversely related
to the energy efficiency). In such situation the performance of
degraded electrolyzers is limited by the maximum operating
temperature of the electrolyzer. The larger heat exchanger
size allows for more cooling in the lye circulation loop. This in
turn allows the degraded electrolyzers to operate at the higher
current densities for the longer part of their lifetime and
produce more hydrogen (see Table 1).
Also, in the situation when the electrolyzer plant flowsheet
with shared BoP and power system is selected the loss in the
hydrogen production at the maximum input power can be
narrowed by oversized cooling capacity in the lye circulation
loop. This is useful in situation where the renewable energy
source is capable of providing the maximum installed power
only for limited time but not at all the times. Hence, the
compromised flexibility of the selected flowsheet having
shared BoP and power system is improved by larger heat
exchanger. This observation concludes that the cooling ca-
pacity in the lye circulation loop should be designed based on
the cooling requirements of the degraded electrolyzer stacks.
The larger heat exchanger results in higher overall hydrogen
production for both flowsheet designs.
Discussion
In this section we discuss the impact of the simplifying
assumption related of the electrolyzer plant flowsheet on the
results of this study.
Table 1 e Comparison of plant flowsheets designs with
different heat exchanger sizes for maximum H2
production.
Plant flowsheet Heat exchanger Maximum H2
Size production, Nm3/hr
Fshared HX0 1219
Fseparate HX0 1300
Fshared HX80 1264
Fseparate HX80 1386
37129
Fig. 9 e Specific electricity consumption of the electrolyzers
considered for the study.
Number of electrolyzer stacks
In this work, we choose to consider only 3 electrolyzer stacks
in the plant flowsheet to keep the calculations simple and to
make the benefits and the associated trade-off to the shared
BoP and power systems distinct. The results from this work
are generic and apply to the flowsheet with an even higher
number of electrolyzer stacks. The electrolyzer stacks in the
flowsheet with shared BoP and power systems are arranged
in a parallel electrical arrangement and thus operate across a
common electrical potential. Having additional electrolyzer
stacks in the shared flowsheet design will add lines to the
current-voltage characteristic plot corresponding to respec-
tive electrolyzer stacks. However, these stacks will always be
constrained to operate across a common electrical potential
dictated by the best performing electrolyzer stack (as shown
by the green horizontal line in the Fig. 7). This leads to limited
overall hydrogen production by the flowsheet designs that
have degraded electrolyzer stacks and share BoP and power
systems. Hence, the simplifying assumption regarding the
number of electrolyzers does not impact the general con-
clusions from this work.
Power system modelling
In this work we focus on the hydrogen production system to
explain how multiple electrolyzer stacks can be configured for
large scale industrial hydrogen production. It is assumed that
the electrolyzer stacks are properly controlled to follow a
reference power profile from a renewable energy source. The
integration of the renewable energy to the grid power is not
studied in this work. Such complex configurations wherein
the grid power is integrated with the renewable power will
require power system modelling to cover the non ideal situ-
ations and load balancing during the electrolyzer plant oper-
ations. The future work can model these electrical behaviors
to design power management system together with the
hydrogen production system.
37130 i n t e r n a t i o n a l j o u r n a l o f h y d r o g e n e n e r g y 4 6 ( 2 0 2 1 ) 3 7 1 2 0 e3 7 1 3 6
Distribution in the degraded state of the electrolyzer stacks
In an industrial operating environment, the stacks will degrade
differently and also be replaced at different point in time (due to
maintenance principles where one and one stack are taken out
of service and replaced with a refurbished stack). As such, it is
important to investigate how different BoP and power supply
designs will be affected operationally by differences in stack
performance. To illustrate this point we select three stacks at
different point in their life cycle. We assume electrolyzer stacks
at different stages of their lifetime, i.e. new (0% degraded), 51%
degraded and 80% degraded. This degradation is assessed
based on the specific electricity consumption by the electro-
lyzer stack at full load. The 80% degraded electrolyzer (i.e.
Electrolyzer 3 in this study) is representative of an electrolyzer
that despite being degraded will remain in the operation for
sometime before replacement. This case study illustrates that
with proper design we can have a reduction in CAPEX (by
sharing BoP and power supply) with a minor effect on OPEX (the
exact value of which will depend on the level of difference in
degradation of the three stacks).
Conclusion
This work investigate flowsheet design for industrial electro-
lyzer systems and how the steady state operational perfor-
mance of the electrolyzer stacks is affected by sharing BoP and
power systems.
The flowsheet layout with separate BoP and power systems
has higher capital investments and offer greater operational
flexibility when the electrolyzer stacks are degraded. However
these higher investments can only payback if the renewable
power supply is expected to provide input power higher than
the maximum power consumption of the shared flowsheet
with degraded electrolyzer stacks. In this work the maximum
power consumption of the shared flowsheet with degraded
electrolyzer stacks is 5.8 MW and the installed capacity is
6.7 MW. The installed capacity corresponds to the power re-
quirements of the shared and separate flowsheet designs
when all electrolyzer stacks are new. When the electrolyzers
stacks are new, shared and separate flowsheet designs have
similar performances for all input power values. Also, the two
flowsheet designs (i.e. separate and shared) with degraded
electrolyzer stacks have identical performances for input
power in range from 1.2 MW to 5.5 MW. Therefore there are no
incentives of additional investments in the separate flowsheet
design for these operation scenarios. Hence, it is concluded
that shared flowsheet layout is most optimal design.
At input power values less than 1.2 MW, when electrolyzer
stacks are degraded significant loss in production is noted in
shared flowsheet design compared to separate flowsheet
design. This is because of process constraints in shared flow-
sheet design while the electrolyzer stacks in separate flowsheet
design remain operational because of higher operational flexi-
bility. For this case shutting down one of the stacks in shared
flowsheet design could be an option to be explored.
The loss in the performance because of fixed lye circulation
flowrate is significant for shared flowsheet design with
degraded electrolyzer stacks especially at higher input power.
That is why fixing lye flowrate for shared flowsheet is a bad
idea. On the contrary, for flowsheet with separate BoP and
power systems fixing the circulating lye flowrate causes
insignificant increment in loss in the performance. Thus the
inlet lye flowrate can be fixed if separate flowsheet design is
selected.
Heat exchanger design has a significant impact on the
performance of both the flowsheet designs and a higher
hydrogen production rate is achieved with the larger heat
exchanger sizes. This is because larger heat exchanger al-
lows for more cooling capacity that enable the degraded
electrolyzer to operate at the maximum temperature at
higher current density. Therefore, it is recommended to
decide the size of heat exchanger in lye circulation loop
based on the cooling demand of the electrolyzer stacks at the
end of the lifetime.
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing
financial interests or personal relationships that could have
appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to express their appreciation to Dr
Sarmad Munir from Yara International ASA for his valuable
and constructive suggestions during planning and develop-
ment of this research work.
This research did not receive any specific grant from
funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit
sectors.
Appendix A. Model equations for the subsystems
of the electrolyzer plant flowsheet
This section describes the mathematical equations and the
assumptions considered for modelling of the lye circulation
system, compressor and gas storage system.
Appendix A.1 Lye circulation system
The gas separators separate the gas lye mixture generated
from electrolyzers. The separation process is assumed to be
ideal, and all the losses are assumed to be negligible to keep
the model simple. The enthalpy of gas streams produced (H2
and O2) is assumed to be equal to the enthalpy of water
consumed during the electrolysis process. In order to main-
tain the concentration of lye in the electrolyzer system, the
liquid streams from the gas separators are collected in the
buffer tank, and additional water is added. The heat capacity
of 30% KOH electrolyte is taken as 3.1 J/g◦C [51].
 i n t e r n a t i o n a l j o u r n a l o f h y d r o g e n e n e r g y 4 6 ( 2 0 2 1 ) 3 7 1 2 0 e3 7 1 3 6 37131

Fig. A.1 e Schematic diagram of the lye circulation system. The control volumes are marked with a dashed line.

Appendix A.1.1 Calculation of the mixed lye stream
temperature from the gas separator
The control volumes considered for modelling of the lye cir-
culation system are marked in Fig. A.1 The temperature of the
lye after mixing electrolyte streams from all the electrolyzers
is given by:
Appendix A.1.2 Mass and energy balances for the buffer tank
The mixed lye stream from the gas separators is collected in
the buffer tank. The schematic of the buffer tank is shown in
Fig. A.2. To keep the model simple, the temperature of the
additional water (i.e.TH2 O ) added to the buffer tank is assumed
to be equal to the temperature of the liquid in the buffer tank,
Tbt,out.

 
S qlye;k Tk Cp;lye  S qH2 Oloss;k Tk Cp;w þ S qH2 Oloss;k Cp;w  Cp;lye Tref
Tel;mix ¼ : (A.1)
Sqlye;k Cp;lye  SqH2 Oloss;k Cp;lye

Here qH2 Oloss;k is the rate of the water consumed during

electrolysis, this is calculated using Equation (8). Tk and qlye,k
are the temperature and inlet lye flow rate of the kth electro-
lyzer. Cp,w and Cp,lye are the heat capacities of water and the lye
solution respectively. Tref is the reference temperature for the
enthalpy calculation which is chosen as 25  C. Fig. A.2 e Schematic diagram of a buffer tank.
37132 i n t e r n a t i o n a l j o u r n a l o f h y d r o g e n e n e r g y 4 6 ( 2 0 2 1 ) 3 7 1 2 0 e3 7 1 3 6

pVx ¼ constant : (A.6)

The mass balance for the buffer tank is written as:
Here x denotes the polytropic exponent and p, V represents
dhbt pressure and volume of the process. This polytropic
rlye Abt ¼ qout þ qH2 O  qlye : (A.2)
dt compression describes the actual process involving both heat
where, rlye is the density of the lye stream, V is the volume of transfer and friction happening within the compressor. The
the buffer tank, Abt is the cross sectional area of the buffer relationship between molar flowrate of hydrogen out of the
compressor, n_ H2 and compressor power is [52]
comp
tank, hbt is the height of the liquid in the buffer tank and qout,
qH2 O and qlye are the mass flow rates of the respective streams. a
n_ H2 ¼
comp
The energy balance equation for the buffer tank is: Powercomp (A.7)
w
 
d rlye VCp;lye Tbtout and
 
dt ¼ qout Cp;lye Tel;mix  Tref 2 3
  (A.3)
þqH2 O Cp;w TH2 O  Tref xRTel 6psto x1 7
w¼ 4 x
5 (A.8)
  x  1 pel
qlye Cp;lye Tbtout  Tref

The left hand side of the equation above can be rewritten where w is the polytropic work, a is the compressor efficiency,
as: for this work we have used a ¼ 0.63. Powercomp is compressor
  power, Tel and pel are inlet gas temperature and pressure to the
d rlye V dðTbtout Þ compressor, psto is the outlet gas pressure from the
Cp;lye Tbtout þ rlye Cp;lye V
dt dt compressor and is equal to the hydrogen pressure in the
   
¼ qout Cp;lye Tel;mix  Tref þ qH2 O Cp;w TH2 O  Tref storage tank and R is the gas constant.
  (A.4)
qlye Cp;lye Tbtout  Tref comp
As shown in the plant flowsheet (Fig. 1), n_ H2 is assumed to
Simplifying Equation A.4 using eq. Equation A.2 we get, be equal to the total flowrate of hydrogen out from all the
electrolyzers, n_ el
H2 . Solving Equation A.7 and Equation A.8 for
dTbtout   
rlye VCp;lye ¼ qout Cp;lye Tel;mix  Tbtout þ qH2 O Cp;w TH2 O Powercomp,
dt
  x1
 Cp;lye Tbtout  qout Cp;lye þ qH2 O Cp;w
Powercomp ¼ : :
 qlye Cp;lye Tref : (A.5)
Appendix A.2 Compressor
The hydrogen from the atmospheric electrolyzer is at atmo-
spheric pressure and therefore, a compressor is needed to
compress hydrogen to high pressure for storage, as shown in
Fig. 1. The compressors available in process industry today
can be categorized into two distinct categories: reciprocating
and rotary compressors.
The developed electrolyzer plant model considers a vari-
able speed centrifugal compressor. For simplicity, the model
assumes that is there is perfect control of the compressor
power such that all the power required by the compressor to
operate is available. Centrifugal compressor is a type of rotary
compressor that compresses gas using centrifugal force. In a
centrifugal compressor, impeller and the shaft are only mov-
ing parts, and it consists of a housing with flow passages for
gas. Work is done on the gas by the impeller mounted on a
rotating shaft. After this, the gas is discharged at high velocity
into a diffuser. In the diffuser, the velocity of the gas is
reduced, thus converting its kinetic energy to static pressure.
The calculation of the performance of centrifugal com-
pressors is based on a polytropic compression step. The pol-
ytropic process is expressed as

n_H2 xRTel psto x
comp
(A.9)
a x  1 pel
A centrifugal compressor is a type of rotary compressor
and has fixed pressure ratio, therefore Powercomp is a depen-
dent variable that is calculated from Equation A.9. As given in
Ref. [53] the polytropic exponent, x is related to adiabatic
component g, through polytropic efficiency Ep as,
x1 g1 1
¼ : : (A.10)
x g Ep
The polytropic efficiency of the centrifugal compressor is
between 0.7 and 0.75 as mentioned in Ref. [53]. For the cal-
culations in this study, it is assumed that Ep ¼ 0.75. The
adiabatic exponent g for hydrogen which is a diatomic mole-
cule is 1.4. For this study, from Equation A.10 polytropic
exponent x ¼ 1.62, which is used for all the simulations.
Similarly, since O2 is also a diatomic molecule, therefore g
and x for oxygen are same as that for hydrogen. Also, to keep
the model simple, we have used Equation A.9 to calculate
comp
power requirements of the oxygen compressor (n_ O 2
is
calculated from stoichiometry).
Appendix A.3 Gas storage system
Appendix A.3.1 Hydrogen Storage
 i n t e r n a t i o n a l j o u r n a l o f h y d r o g e n e n e r g y 4 6 ( 2 0 2 1 ) 3 7 1 2 0 e3 7 1 3 6 37133

Appendix A.3.2 Oxygen Storage

The oxygen production is calculated directly from the stoi-
chiometry. Stoichiometry of the electrolysis reaction as given
by Equation (8).
The overall mole balance for oxygen gas storage is given by
Equation A.11, and assuming ideal gas behaviour the equation
becomes
 
dpsto;O2 ðTsto þ 273:15ÞR comp
¼ n_O2  n_out
O2 : (A.14)
dt Vsto
Fig. A.3 e Schematic diagram of H2 gas storage. The control There is no accumulation of gases in the compressor,
volume is marked with a dashed line.
therefore n_ O2 ¼ n_ O2 . Similar to the hydrogen storage, Tsto is
comp el


ideally controlled at 25 C.
The overall mole balance of a gas storage, as shown in Fig. The outlet molar flow is given by the valve equation
A.3 can be expressed as pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
n_O2 ¼ kvlv z psto;O2  pout :
out
(A.15)
dnsto;H2
¼ n_H2  n_H2 :
comp out
(A.11)
dt

Here nsto is the molar holdup in the storage tank and n_ H2 is the
out Appendix B. UeI curve parameters for the
molar outlet flow. Inserting ideal gas n ¼ pV/RT in Equation electrolyzers
A.11
This section lists the value of electrolyzer characteristic curve
 
dpsto;H2 ðTsto þ 273:15ÞR comp parameters used in this study. The electrolyzer stacks are
n_H2  n_H2
out
¼ (A.12)
dt Vsto assumed to be in different stages of their lifetime. The elec-
where Vsto is the storage volume, Tsto is the storage tempera- trolyzer 1 is new, while electrolyzer 2 and 3 are 51% and 80%
ture in ◦C and R is the gas constant. The operating pressure degraded respectively. This degradation is represented by
storage psto;H2 is the dynamic state variable. choosing values of ohmic and activation overvoltage param-
eters for the electrolyzers as given in Table B.1.

Table B.1 e UeI curve parameter values for the electrolyzers

Parameter Unit Electrolyzer 1 Electrolyzer 2 Electrolyzer 3
4 4
r1 Um 2
2.18  10 2.62  10 2.84  104
r2 Um2/◦C 4.25  107 4.25  107 4.25  107
s V 117.93  103 141.52  103 153.31  103
t1 m2/A 145.29  103 145.29  103 145.29  103
t2 m2◦C/A 11.794 11.794 11.794
t3 m2◦C2/A 395.68 395.68 395.68
f1 mA2/cm4 120 144 156
f2 e 0.98 0.97 0.96

The outlet molar flow is given by the valve equation

pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
n_H2 ¼ kvlv z psto;H2  pout :
out
(A.13)
Here kvlv is the valve constant and z is the valve displace-
ment. The storage temperature Tsto is assumed to be ideally

controlled to 25 C. The pressure of the electrolyzer is assumed
to be constant. The pressure in the vessel increases as it is
filled with more gas. However, the pressure of the inlet stream
does not change. Note that the pressure of the inlet stream
must be higher than the storage pressure in order to get it into
the storage.
Appendix C. Design parameters of the
electrolyzer plant
The new electrolyzer stack has a nominal power consumption
of 2.135 MW and operates at 80◦C. All electrolyzer stacks have
230 cells and cell electrode area of 2.6 m2. These cells are
connected in series with a common lye inlet and lye/gas outlet
system. The design parameters for the state of the art elec-
trolyzer plant are given in Table C.1, these values are esti-
mated from operation and CAPEX data available in Refs.
37134 i n t e r n a t i o n a l j o u r n a l o f h y d r o g e n e n e r g y 4 6 ( 2 0 2 1 ) 3 7 1 2 0 e3 7 1 3 6

references
Table C.1 e Design parameters of the electrolyzer plant
Specification Value Unit
Electrolyte 30% aq. KOH e [1] European Commission. The European economic and social
Electrode area 2.6 m2 committee and the committee of the regions- a hydrogen
Number of cells 230 e strategy for a climate-neutral Europe. European
Lye circulation rate 6.648 kg/s Commission, Brussels, 8.7.2020 COM 2020;301(final). URL,
Heat capacity of lye 3.101 kJ/kgK https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?
Cooling water flow rate 20.698 kg/s uri¼CELEX:52020DC0301&from¼EN.
Heat capacity of water 4.186 kJ/kgK [2] Balat M. Potential importance of hydrogen as a future
Maximum H2 production rate 485 Nm3/hr solution to environmental and transportation problems. Int J
Minimum current density 32 mA/cm2 Hydrogen Energy 2008;33(15):4013e29. https://doi.org/
Maximum current density 198.5 mA/cm2 10.1016/j.ijhydene.2008.05.047. URL, http://www.
◦
Minimum electrolyzer temperature 25 C sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360319908005272.
◦
Maximum electrolyzer temperature 80 C [3] Pilavachi PA, Chatzipanagi AI, Spyropoulou AI. Evaluation
Nominal power consumption/stack 2.135 MW of hydrogen production methods using the Analytic
Volume of hydrogen storage tank 965 m3 Hierarchy Process. Int J Hydrogen Energy
Volume of oxygen storage tank 482.5 m3 2009;34(13):5294e303. https://doi.org/10.1016/
Active area of electrolyzer stack, As 131.56 m2 j.ijhydene.2009.04.026. URL, http://www.sciencedirect.com/
Thermal capacity of the electrolyzer stack, 51,322.1 kJ/K science/article/pii/S0360319909005436.
Ct,k [4] The Future of Hydrogen. The future of hydrogen (June). 2019.
https://doi.org/10.1787/1e0514c4-en.
[5] Marone A, Ayala-Campos OR, Trably E, Carmona-
[43,48]. The peak load of the renewable energy system is Martı́nez AA, Moscoviz R, Latrille E, Steyer JP, Alcaraz-
assumed to be 6.7 MW. Gonzalez V, Bernet N. Coupling dark fermentation and
microbial electrolysis to enhance bio-hydrogen production
from agro-industrial wastewaters and by-products in a bio-
refinery framework. Int J Hydrogen Energy
Appendix D. Sizing of the heat exchanger in the 2017;42(3):1609e21. https://doi.org/10.1016/
lye circulation loop j.ijhydene.2016.09.166. URL, http://www.sciencedirect.com/
science/article/pii/S0360319916312071.
[6] Ahn Y, Im S, Chung JW. Optimizing the operating
The heat exchanger (or cooler) is present in the lye circulation
temperature for microbial electrolysis cell treating sewage
loop and is responsible for cooling down the lye before
sludge. Int J Hydrogen Energy 2017;42(45):27784e91. https://
sending it back into the electrolyzer. At the design stage, we doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhydene.2017.05.139. URL, http://www.
have three specifications for calculating the heat exchanger sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360319917320475.
size (i.e. UAHX value). First, the temperature difference be- [7] Wang YZ, Zhang L, Xu T, Ding K. Influence of initial anolyte

tween hot stream inlet and outlet temperatures is 14 C. Sec- pH and temperature on hydrogen production through
ond, the difference between the cold stream outlet and inlet simultaneous saccharification and fermentation of
 lignocellulose in microbial electrolysis cell. Int J Hydrogen
temperatures is 10 C. Third, the lye and cooling water flow-
Energy 2017;42(36):22663e70. https://doi.org/10.1016/
rate are assumed to be constant. This study includes two j.ijhydene.2017.07.214. URL, http://www.sciencedirect.com/
different heat exchanger designs (i.e. HX0 and HX80). HX0 is the science/article/pii/S0360319917331245.
heat exchanger design based on the cooling demand of the [8] Khongkliang P, Kongjan P, Utarapichat B, Reungsang A, O-
new electrolyzers at the beginning of their lifetime. This heat Thong S. Continuous hydrogen production from cassava
exchanger design limits the performance of the electrolyzers starch processing wastewater by two-stage thermophilic
when the electrolyzers are subsequently degraded but has dark fermentation and microbial electrolysis. Int J Hydrogen
Energy 2017;42(45):27584e92. https://doi.org/10.1016/
smaller sizer (i.e. lower UAHX value) and thus relatively
j.ijhydene.2017.06.145. URL, http://www.sciencedirect.com/
cheaper. The larger heat exchanger size allows for higher heat science/article/pii/S0360319917325004.
removal in the cooler and thus increases the overall hydrogen [9] Ursúa A, Gandı́a LM, Sanchis P. Hydrogen production from
production. Hence, heat exchanger HX80 is designed based on water electrolysis: current status and future trends. Proc IEEE
the cooling demand of the degraded electrolyzers at 80% 2012;100(2):410e26. https://doi.org/10.1109/
degraded state. The size of shared heat exchanger (i.e. UAHX JPROC.2011.2156750.
[10] Schmidt O, Gambhir A, Staffell I, Hawkes A, Nelson J, Few S.
value) for the flowsheet Fshared and individual heat exchangers
Future cost and performance of water electrolysis: an expert
(i.e. UAHX;i ) for flowsheet Fseparate is summarized in Table D.1.
elicitation study. Int J Hydrogen Energy 2017;42(52):30470e92.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhydene.2017.10.045. URL, https://
www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/
Table D.1 e Size of the heat exchanger (UAHX value) for S0360319917339435.
different heat exchanger design basis [11] David M, Ocampo-Martı́nez C, Sa  nchez-Pen~ a R. Advances in
alkaline water electrolyzers: a review. J Energy Storage
Heat exchanger Shared HX Individual HX
Convers 2019;23(April):392e403. https://doi.org/10.1016/
design basis UAHX UAHX;i [kW/K] c i 2 1, 2, 3
j.est.2019.03.001.
[kW/K]
[12] Brauns J, Turek T. Alkaline water electrolysis powered by
New electrolyzer, HX0 15.21 5.07 renewable energy: a review. Processes 2020;8(2). https://
Degraded electrolyzer, 20.48 6.83 doi.org/10.3390/pr8020248. URL, https://www.mdpi.com/
HX80 2227-9717/8/2/248.
 i n t e r n a t i o n a l j o u r n a l o f h y d r o g e n e n e r g y 4 6 ( 2 0 2 1 ) 3 7 1 2 0 e3 7 1 3 6
[13] Buttler A, Spliethoff H. Current status of water electrolysis
for energy storage, grid balancing and sector coupling via
power-to-gas and power-to-liquids: a review. 2 2018. https://
doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2017.09.003.
[14] Go € tz M, Lefebvre J, Mo
€ rs F, McDaniel Koch A, Graf F, Bajohr S,
Reimert R, Kolb T. Renewable Power-to-Gas: a technological
and economic review. Renew Energy 2016;85:1371e90.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.renene.2015.07.066. URL, https://
www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/
S0960148115301610.
[15] Marini S, Salvi P, Nelli P, Pesenti R, Villa M, Berrettoni M,
Zangari G, Kiros Y. Advanced alkaline water electrolysis.
Electrochim Acta 2012;82:384e91. https://doi.org/10.1016/
j.electacta.2012.05.011. URL, https://www.sciencedirect.com/
science/article/pii/S001346861200713X.
[16] Grigoriev SA, Fateev VN, Bessarabov DG, Millet P. Current
status, research trends, and challenges in water electrolysis
science and technology. Int J Hydrogen Energy
2020;45(49):26036e58. https://doi.org/10.1016/
j.ijhydene.2020.03.109. URL, https://www.sciencedirect.com/
science/article/pii/S0360319920310715.
[17] Proost J. State-of-the art CAPEX data for water electrolysers,
and their impact on renewable hydrogen price settings. Int J
Hydrogen Energy 2019;44(9):4406e13. https://doi.org/10.1016/
j.ijhydene.2018.07.164. 10.1016/j.ijhydene.2018.07.164. URL.
[18] Steeb H, Seeger W, Aba Oud H. Hysolar: an overview on the
German-Saudi Arabian programme on solar hydrogen. Int J
Hydrogen Energy 1994;19(8):683e6. https://doi.org/10.1016/
0360-3199(94)90154-6. URL, http://www.sciencedirect.com/
science/article/pii/0360319994901546.
[19] Argumosa MdP. EVALUATIONS OF HYDROGEN
DEMONSTRATION PROJECTS FINAL REPORT for IEA -
international energy agency HIA - hydrogen implementing
agreement task 18: integrated systems evaluation subtask B:
demonstration project evaluations. Phase II; 2010.
[20] A. T. Stuart, reportInternational energy agency hydrogen
implementing agreement task 11 : INTEGRATED systems
final report of subtask A : case studies of integrated hydrogen
energy systems chapter 3 of 11 Switzerland chapter 3,
Renewable Energydoi:10.2172/775587.
[21] Chehade Z, Mansilla C, Lucchese P, Hilliard S, Proost J.
Review and analysis of demonstration projects on power-to-
X pathways in the world. Int J Hydrogen Energy
2019;44(51):27637e55. https://doi.org/10.1016/
j.ijhydene.2019.08.260. URL, http://www.sciencedirect.com/
science/article/pii/S0360319919333142.
[22] Wulf C, Zapp P, Schreiber A. Review of power-to-X
demonstration projects in Europe. Front Energy Res
2020;8:191. https://doi.org/10.3389/fenrg.2020.00191. URL,
https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fenrg.2020.
00191.
[23] Ulleberg y, Nakken T, Ete  A. The wind/hydrogen
demonstration system at Utsira in Norway: evaluation of
system performance using operational data and updated
hydrogen energy system modeling tools. Int J Hydrogen
Energy 2010;35(5):1841e52. https://doi.org/10.1016/
j.ijhydene.2009.10.077. URL, http://www.sciencedirect.com/
science/article/pii/S0360319909016759.
[24] Gazey R, Salman SK, Aklil-D’Halluin DD. A field application
experience of integrating hydrogen technology with wind
power in a remote island location. J Power Sources
2006;157(2):841e7. https://doi.org/10.1016/
j.jpowsour.2005.11.084. URL, http://www.sciencedirect.com/
science/article/pii/S0378775305016526.
[25] Dutton AG, Bleijs JA, Dienhart H, Falchetta M, Hug W,
Prischich D, Ruddell AJ. Experience in the design, sizing,
economics, and implementation of autonomous wind-
powered hydrogen production systems. Int J Hydrogen
37135
Energy 2000;25(8):705e22. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0360-
3199(99)00098-1. URL, http://www.sciencedirect.com/
science/article/pii/S0360319999000981.
[26] Kelly NA, Gibson TL, Ouwerkerk DB. A solar-powered, high-
efficiency hydrogen fueling system using high-pressure
electrolysis of water: design and initial results. Int J
Hydrogen Energy 2008;33(11):2747e64. https://doi.org/
10.1016/j.ijhydene.2008.03.036. URL, http://www.
sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360319908003248.
[27] Hollmuller P, Joubert JM, Lachal B, Yvon K. Evaluation of a 5
kWp photovoltaic hydrogen production and storage
installation for a residential home in Switzerland. Int J
Hydrogen Energy 2000;25(2):97e109. https://doi.org/10.1016/
S0360-3199(99)00015-4. URL, http://www.sciencedirect.com/
science/article/pii/S0360319999000154.
[28] Szyszka A. Ten years of solar hydrogen demonstration
project at Neunburg vorm Wald, Germany. Int J Hydrogen
Energy 1998;23(10):849e60. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0360-
3199(97)00172-9. URL, http://www.sciencedirect.com/
science/article/pii/S0360319997001729.
[29] Lehman PA, Chamberlin CE, Pauletto G, Rocheleau MA.
Operating experience with a photovoltaic-hydrogen energy
system. Int J Hydrogen Energy 1997;22(5):465e70. https://
doi.org/10.1016/s0360-3199(96)00127-9. URL, http://www.
sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360319996001279.
[30] Kauranen PS, Lund PD, Vanhanen JP. Development of a self-
sufficient solar-hydrogen energy system. Int J Hydrogen
Energy 1994;19(1):99e106. https://doi.org/10.1016/0360-
3199(94)90181-3. URL, http://www.sciencedirect.com/
science/article/pii/0360319994901813.
[31] David M, Alvarez H, Ocampo-Martinez C, Sa  nchez-Pen ~ a R.
Dynamic modelling of alkaline self-pressurized
electrolyzers: a phenomenological-based semiphysical
approach. Int J Hydrogen Energy 2020;45(43):22394e407.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhydene.2020.06.038. URL, https://
www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/
S0360319920321753.
[32] Persson M, Mignard D, Hogg D. Insights on performance and
an improved model for full scale electrolysers based on plant
data for design and operation of hydrogen production. Int J
Hydrogen Energy 2020;45(56):31396e409. https://doi.org/
10.1016/j.ijhydene.2020.08.255. URL, https://www.
sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360319920333115.
[33] Amores E, Rodrı́guez J, Carreras C. Influence of operation
parameters in the modeling of alkaline water electrolyzers
for hydrogen production. Int J Hydrogen Energy
2014;39(25):13063e78. https://doi.org/10.1016/
j.ijhydene.2014.07.001. URL, https://www.sciencedirect.com/
science/article/pii/S0360319914019120.
[34] Jang D, Cho H-S, Kang S. Numerical modeling and analysis of
the effect of pressure on the performance of an alkaline
water electrolysis system. Appl Energy 2021;287:116554.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2021.116554. URL, https://
www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/
S0306261921001021.
[35] Jang D, Choi W, Cho H-S, Cho WC, Kim CH, Kang S.
Numerical modeling and analysis of the temperature effect
on the performance of an alkaline water electrolysis system.
J Power Sources 2021;506:230106. https://doi.org/10.1016/
j.jpowsour.2021.230106. URL, https://www.sciencedirect.
com/science/article/pii/S0378775321006303.
[36] Ulleberg y. Modeling of advanced alkaline electrolyzers: a
system simulation approach. Int J Hydrogen Energy
2003;28(1):21e33. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0360-3199(02)
00033-2. URL, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/
article/pii/S0360319902000332.
[37] Tijani AS, Yusup NAB, Rahim AHA. Mathematical modelling
and simulation analysis of advanced alkaline electrolyzer
37136 i n t e r n a t i o n a l j o u r n a l o f h y d r o g e n e n e r g y 4 6 ( 2 0 2 1 ) 3 7 1 2 0 e3 7 1 3 6
system for hydrogen production. Procedia Technol
2014;15:798e806. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.protcy.2014.09.053.
URL, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/
S2212017314001686.
[38] Pino FJ, Valverde L, Rosa F. Influence of wind turbine power
curve and electrolyzer operating temperature on hydrogen
production in windehydrogen systems. J Power Sources
2011;196(9):4418e26. https://doi.org/10.1016/
j.jpowsour.2010.10.060. URL, https://www.sciencedirect.com/
science/article/pii/S0378775310018598.
[39] Aouali FZ, Becherif M, Tabanjat A, Emziane M,
Mohammedi K, Krehi S, Khellaf A. Modelling and
experimental analysis of a PEM electrolyser powered by a
solar photovoltaic panel. Energy Procedia 2014;62:714e22.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.egypro.2014.12.435. URL, https://
www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/
S1876610214034663.
[40] Dolci F. Green hydrogen opportunities in selected industrial
processes Workshop summary report (June). 2018. https://
doi.org/10.2760/634063. URL, https://ec.europa.eu/jrc.
[41] Niaz H, Liu J. A mixed integer dynamic optimization
approach for a hybrid-stand alone solar and wind powered
alkaline water electrolyser for renewable hydrogen. of
Computer Aided Chemical Engineering. In: Türkay M, Gani R,
editors. 31st European symposium on computer aided
process engineering, vol. 50. Elsevier; 2021. p. 1285e91.
https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-323-88506-5.50198-4. URL,
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/
B9780323885065501984.
[42] Varela C, Mostafa M, Zondervan E. Modeling alkaline water
electrolysis for power-to-x applications: a scheduling
approach. Int J Hydrogen Energy 2021;46(14):9303e13. https://
doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhydene.2020.12.111. URL, https://www.
sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S036031992034725X.
[43] Nel ASA. Specification of A485 atmospheric alkaline
electrolyzer. available on, https://nelhydrogen.com/product/
atmospheric-alkaline-electrolyser-a-series/. [Accessed 6 May
2020].
[44] Ratcliff G. Unit operations of chemical engineering 1957;6.
https://doi.org/10.1016/0009-2509(57)85034-9.
[45] Kojima H, Matsuda T, Matsumoto H, Tsujimura T.
Development of dynamic simulator of alkaline water
electrolyzer for optimizing renewable energy systems. J Int
Counc Electr Eng 2018;8(1):19e24. https://doi.org/10.1080/
22348972.2018.1436931.
[46] LeRoy RL, Bowen CT, LeRoy DJ. The thermodynamics of
aqueous water electrolysis. J Electrochem Soc
1980;127(9):1954e62. https://doi.org/10.1149/1.2130044. URL,
http://jes.ecsdl.org/cgi/doi/10.1149/1.2130044.
[47] Skogestad S. Chemical and energy process engineering.
Taylor {y&} Francis Group; 2008. https://doi.org/10.1201/
9781420087567.
[48] Proost J. State-of-the art CAPEX data for water electrolysers,
and their impact on renewable hydrogen price settings. Int J
Hydrogen Energy 2019:4406e13. https://doi.org/10.1016/
j.ijhydene.2018.07.164.
[49] Schro € der V, Emonts B, Janßen H, Schulze HP. Explosion
limits of hydrogen/oxygen mixtures at initial pressures up to
200 bar. Chem Eng Technol 2004;27(8):847e51. https://
doi.org/10.1002/ceat.200403174.
[50] Zeng K, Zhang D. Recent progress in alkaline water
electrolysis for hydrogen production and applications. Prog
Energy Combust Sci 2010;36(3):307e26. https://doi.org/
10.1016/j.pecs.2009.11.002. URL, https://www.sciencedirect.
com/science/article/pii/S0360128509000598.
[51] Occidental Chemical Coporation. KOH handbook, caustic
potash handbook. URL, https://www.oxy.com/
OurBusinesses/Chemicals/Products/Documents/
CausticPotash/KOH-Handbook-2018-ed.pdf.
[52] Zhou T, Francois B. Modeling and control design of hydrogen
production process for an active hydrogen/wind hybrid
power system. Int J Hydrogen Energy 2009;34(1):21e30.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhydene.2008.10.030.
[53] Guo B, Liu X, Tan X. Chapter 11 - transportation systems. In:
Guo B, Liu X, Tan X, editors. Petroleum production
engineering (second edition). 2nd ed. Edition. Boston: Gulf
Professional Publishing; 2017. p. 275e325. https://doi.org/
10.1016/B978-0-12-809374-0.00011-8 URL. https://www.
sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/
B9780128093740000118.