PowerLabDK tests Water Electrolyzer for European market

For the next twelve months a 35kW Proton Exchange Membrane Water Electrolyzer owned and manufactured by the English company ITM Power will be tested at DTU Elektro’s laboratory PowerLabDK.

This activity is supported by the EU QualyGridS project (2016-2019) and aims at development and validation of a series of standardized test protocols. Such protocols are paving the way for Water Electrolyzers to offer electricity grid services to power system operators in Europe.

“The test-bench and the test procedure are designed according to a series of standardized test protocols that are developed to resemble pre-qualification requirements for grid balancing services in different European countries for instance frequency containment reserve (FCR), frequency restoration reserve (FRR) and replacement reserve (RR)”, DTU’s project responsible for QualyGridS, Shi You explains.

PowerLabDK was asked to do the tests due to its specialized staff and unique facilities.

“As the only lab in Europe PowerLabDK is able to perform all necessary tests at the same place,” says COO at PowerLabDK, Frida Frost.

A key technology suited for multiple green applications
Water electrolyzing (WE) is the technology of using electricity to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. When the electricity used to produce hydrogen comes from renewables, the hydrogen is “green”.  Today, approximately 5% of global hydrogen is produced through WEs.

Although most of the hydrogen is used for industrial applications such as refining, treating metals, and food processing, new business opportunities related to green hydrogen are already on the way, such as mobility, energy storage and feed in to the gas grid etc.

“The green hydrogen produced by WEs can fuel hydrogen cars or be used in a green hydrogen power plant and turned into electrical energy”, says electrical engineer at PowerLabDK Bjarni í Dali.

Among several different WE technologies, the PEM Water Electrolyzer is well known for its ability to operate under highly dynamic conditions. This allows the system to work as a variable electrical load, drawing power from the grid smoothen out intermittent production from renewables such as solar cells and wind turbines.

“In PowerLabDK we are proud to have yet another energy component in our energy system lab facilities, supporting the goal of providing the sustainable smart energy systems with very high stability, that the future will require,” says Frida Frost.