University of Victoria

Purpose

Though green hydrogen production has the potential to reduce 37% of energyrelated emissions if scaled, the process faces adoption challenges due to high costs, compromised system reliability, and loss in performance/efficiencies. Owing to the complexity of the electrolyser system, off-design operating conditions lead to performance degradation mechanisms that could not historically be monitored or managed at the industrial stack scale. Pulsenic’s Propriety Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS) device will enable monitoring and differentiating the degradation losses during a high current electrolysis process, which in return could provide information and data about the behaviour of the components during on/off-design operating condition. The objective of this project is to use this stack level data enabled by Pulsenic’s device to develop a model of a renewably powered electrolysis plant that correlates operating and stack design conditions with the electrolyser efficiencies. This model will map the relationship between operating/design conditions and electrolyser degradations to inform optimization choices for improved reliability and costs. Enabled by the collaborators(NRC, UQTR and uVic) technical expertise in material and electrochemical degradation characterizations and modeling innovations, this Project will produce a novel solution for managing the performance and economics of electrolysis plant operations.