Real-World Green Hydrogen Pilot Plant Based on a 30 kW Electrolyzer: Implementation, Operation and Open-Source Supervision

Hydrogen production and storage constitute a promising technology in the path towards a global energy scenario featured by renewable energy penetration, decarbonization, sustainable development and resilience. In particular, so-called green hydrogen is generated from renewable energy sources, generally produced in an electrolyzer by means of Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) water electrolysis. To make these expectations reality, experimental and real-world facilities are required, dealing with challenging aspects such as new technologies and integration of equipment. Thus, this paper presents the implementation and operation of a pilot plant for green hydrogen generation and storage based on a commercial 30 kW PEM electrolyzer. The renewable source is a photovoltaic generator of 60.6 kW which supplies the hydrogen generator through an inverter. Furthermore, the deployment of a supervisory system entirely based on open-source technologies is reported. The equipment employed and the supervisory system developed in this work exhibit a level of complexity and scale that is uncommon in the literature. Therefore, this article is a novelty in the literature and aims to contribute to the advancement of green hydrogen production and storage by providing experimental data and descriptions of a fully functional plant operating under real-world conditions. The achieved results under real operation conditions prove the successful implementation of the pilot plant as well as the suitability of the supervisory system to effectively track the most relevant variables.