New facilities for hydrogen research: Hydrohub
11-03-2020 | New Project | P2Hydrogen
It is expected that by the end of this year, the Hydrohub MegaWatt Test Centre will become fully operational. It offers state-of-the-art facilities for optimizing and scaling-up of electrolysis using alkaline and PEM technology. With two 250 kW test electrolyzers it facilitates the next step in bringing the production of green hydrogen to an industrially relevant multi-megawatt level, focusing on robustness, flexibility, efficiency and cost reduction.
Hydrohub is being built at the Energy Transition Centre of the Hanze University of Applied Sciences at the Zernike Campus Groningen. It has been initiated by the Institute for Sustainable Process Technology (ISPT) and is carried out by a consortium of over thirty partners from industry, energy, academia and government. As partner, VoltaChem is closely involved in the design, operation, and research agenda of this Test Centre through its founding partner TNO.
Open innovation
Hydrohub offers an open-innovation infrastructure for research and stress testing of electrolysis equipment under industrially relevant conditions. Here, suppliers of materials and components such as membranes, electrodes, pumps and much more can test the performance of their products in real electrolysis equipment. Most of these suppliers are not capable of such testing at their own premises, and when they cooperate with electrolyzer manufacturers there's often little transparency.
The 250 kW size of the Hydrohub electrolyzers is ideal for testing on a relevant scale. On the one hand they are small enough to be readily accessible for research and testing of components, on the other hand they are large and advanced enough to obtain test parameters under industrially relevant conditions. In fact, Hydrohub facilitates the next step in electrolyser (component) development. The Faraday Lab in Petten focuses on development and testing of new technologies and materials on a small scale, at the level of single cells. In Hydrohub the next steps can be taken.
Do you want to know more about our hydrogen research facilities in general, the Hydrohub MegaWatt Test Center in particular or explore further the opportunities for cooperation on hydrogen within VoltaChem? Please contact our Power-2-Hydrogen business development manager Lennart van der Burg.
Series on VoltaChem's hydrogen research facilities
This is part 2 in a series on VoltaChem's state-of-the-art hydrogen research facilities. Part 1 was on the Faraday Lab in Petten. In part 3 we will give you more insights on the Field Lab Industrial Electrification in Rotterdam which will be dedicated to the integration of, a.o. electrolyzers in an industrial environment, using hydrogen and CO2 to make new fuels and chemicals.
In 2020, the VoltaChem program will start employing 4 state-of-the-art hydrogen research facilities in The Netherlands. These facilities have been developed by VoltaChem's founding father TNO and partners such as ISPT and Deltalinqs, supported by the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy. All facilities are aimed at assisting companies in their product development and implementation. The Faraday Lab in Petten facilitates small-scale research with a focus on new materials and components; the Hydrohub in Groningen focuses on large-scale stack research and materials testing; the electrolyzer and fuel cell Stack Test Center in Helmond has the ability to test the performance of large stacks (>250kW) of different suppliers; and the Field Lab Industrial Electrification in Rotterdam is dedicated to the integration of electrolyzers in an industrial environment, using hydrogen and CO2 to make new fuels and chemicals.
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