Sizing of the Balance of Plant components for a Proton Exchange Membrane water electrolysis system

In the framework of reaching the climate neutrality by 2050, hydrogen can play an important role because it can be used in different sectors and it does not emit air pollution compounds when used. In order to obtain hydrogen from low-emission processes, the water electrolysis technologies, which are able to exploit the electricity that comes from renewables, are promising techniques. In this context, the proton exchange membrane electrolysers present different advantages that make them suitable for the coupling with renewables and being, therefore, an interesting technique for the production of low-emission hydrogen. However, in the hydrogen production chain, there is a series of components that need to be considered in addition to the electrolyser. In particular, pumps, heat exchangers, gas purification units are key elements that have to be considered as part of the overall process. The aim of this work is to provide a reference in order to size the balance of plant components involved in the hydrogen production process from a PEM water electrolyser. The starting point is the design of the system considering different references found in literature and, after that, the various components will be sized according to various empirical models. The sizing models will be implemented in Excel and in MATLAB in order to develop the calculations. Moreover, the system will be implemented in Aspen Plus ® V10 in order to obtain the sizes of the component and compare them with the results from MATLAB.