Dutch company Battolyser Systems has developed an electrolyser technology which could allow green hydrogen projects to switch more easily between trading electricity at high power prices or producing hydrogen at low prices, CEO, Mattijs Slee tells Hydrogen Economist.

The economics of the Battolyser technology —a new take on the nickel-iron ‘Edison battery’ that produced hydrogen gas at full charge— are not dependent on maintaining a certain load factor, offering greater flexibility than conventional electrolysers.

“It is always active. There is no load factor for a Battolyser, there is always a choice between selling electricity or producing hydrogen,” says Slee, a former commercial head for Shell’s hydrogen business.

The system takes “about an hour” to fully charge from zero, Slee says. The technology also produces hydrogen during charging, albeit at a lower rate.

Conventional electrolysers “lose money producing hydrogen at high power prices” and are more likely to be impacted by potential EU regulations requiring temporal and geographical correlation, he adds.

“We are way too naïve about buying the cheapest possible systems from China,” Slee, Battolyser

And while a leaked draft of the regulations indicates that hourly matching will only be required from April 2028, with quarterly matching allowed prior to then, Slee argues that this relaxation from initial drafts is a step backward for the hydrogen sector.

“First, it is not necessary, the industry should be able to deal with those fluctuations. And second, as a sustainable company, we do not think it is good for the environment,” he says. “If you let go of temporal and geographical correlation, you end up filling in the holes with more fossil fuels. We are basically relaxing the requirements and asking future generations to pay for it.”

Battolyser announced plans to build a 1GW/yr factory at the port of Rotterdam in late November, with FID scheduled for late 2023.  And while to date, the company has secured one firm customer, it has seen interest from large industrial players in Europe, according to Slee.

“We target large industrial customers, integrated energy companies—oil and gas moving upstream into renewables, utilities moving downstream into hydrogen,” he says.

The operational pilot Battolyser has up to 0.1MW of capacity per stack, although the firm aims to produce a 1-2MW second-generation of the technology ready for installation by Q3 2023. “If you were to produce hydrogen all the time, the conversion rate of our commercial series production product is around 80pc at a system level, not just for each stack,” Slee says, noting that annual production of hydrogen in kilogrammes will depend on power prices.

Resource security

While Europe has seen a proliferation of electrolyser manufacturers over the past few years, there is increasing competition with manufacturers in Asia Pacific and China in particular.

“There is a risk that electrolyser production moves out of Europe. We lost solar PV to China, we lost batteries—which Europe is trying to regain, but even now, the production capacity today is largely based in China,” Slee says.

“We are way too naïve about buying the cheapest possible systems from China, which means as these manufacturers increase their production capacity, they actually reduce the unit price to the point we can never come back again,” he adds.

Future energy security in Europe could also depend on access to critical minerals and metals necessary to manufacture energy transition technologies.

“The discussion around resource self-sufficiency—not just for hydrogen, but throughout Europe—is just starting. I do not think it has been brought home yet,” says Slee, noting that demand for platinum group metals—used in proton-exchange-membrane electrolysers—could exceed supply over the coming decades. “[PEM electrolyser manufacturers] are saying it is not too bad, they can lower the iridium content and recycle, but that might the wishful thinking.”

US-based startup H2U Technologies has recently run a demonstration of a PEM electrolyser stack manufactured without iridium catalysts.

Iron and nickel are used in the manufacture of both Battolysers and alkaline electrolysers. Although the prices of these commodities have spiked over the past year, Slee is confident that firm will not be affected by these price shocks.

“At present, the nickel price represents battery-grade nickel. We use non-battery grade nickel, which is not traded so the price is less transparent. It’s a non-pure form of nickel that is very abundant, and when we have done analysis in terms of reserves, there is more than enough in the world,” he says.

Refining and production capacity is likely to scale to meet demand for battery-grade nickel from the electric vehicle market, allowing Battolyser to “take up off-spec nickel”, he adds.

 

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Author: Polly Martin