Techno-Economic Evaluation for Different Green Hydrogen & Fuel Cell Technologies

The negative effects of climate change resulting from greenhouse gas emissions are becoming increasingly apparent every year. The petrochemical industry contributes to 3.9% of overall CO2 emissions across all sectors. To decrease these emissions, fuel cell technologies can be implemented to generate low-carbon electricity whereas water electrolysis technologies can be employed for the production of green hydrogen. Low-carbon electricity allows for the electrification of current petrochemical technologies like steam crackers. Green hydrogen can be used for fuel switching as well as in low-carbon pathways towards making petrochemical products. This work presents a techno-economic analysis on these technologies.
Solid Oxide Fuel Cell (SOFC) technology was explored for low-carbon electricity generation. Here, chemical energy from natural gas is converted to low-carbon electricity. It was found that SOFC technology yields a 46% improvement in net plant efficiency when compared to a Natural Gas Combined Cycle (NGCC) Plant with Carbon Capture & Storage (CCS). However, the Levelized Cost of Electricity (LCOE) was found to be 51% higher than that for traditional NGCC technologies.
Solid Oxide Electrolysis (SOEC), Alkaline Electrolysis (ALK) and Proton Exchange Membrane Electrolysis (PEM) technologies were explored for the production of green hydrogen. Out of the three technologies, SOEC was found to have the best technical performance, with a net plant efficiency of 88%HHV and a green hydrogen production rate of 28.3t/h, under an electrical load of 1000MW. In contrary, ALK and PEM technologies were estimated to be the most economical technologies, with Levelized Costs of Hydrogen (LCOH) in the range of 5.87-9.09$/kg.