Dynamic Simulation of a PEM Electrolysis System

Abstract

Electrolysis systems are the key technology to producehydrogen from renewable energy sources. The modeling andsimulation of proton exchange membrane (PEM) electrolyzersand the connected power grid are a challenge due to highlyfluctuating loads in the available electrical power. Ourstudy focuses on the modeling of the electrolyzer and itsbalance of plant with varying loads resulting fromdifferent energy sources. The balance of plant contains awater supply system, the electrical power supply andprocesses for treating the produced hydrogen, in particulardrying. The electrolyzer model is validated usingsteady-state and dynamic data from the literature. Thereby,it is shown that the developed model accurately representsthe measurement results from the literature. Furthermore,we implement an empirical degradation model to assess theeffects of different use-cases on the efficiency of theelectrolyzer.