Electrolysis hydrogen production cost from

With all these assumptions, the hydrogen production cost from the sulphur-iodine cycle is estimated to be slightly less than EUR 10 kgH2. This value is much higher than the estimated hydrogen production cost from alkaline electrolysis at the same production scale, about EUR 3 to 4 kgH2 for comparable energy unit costs. 

Figure 1. Estimated hydrogen production cost from a large water electrolysis plant. Electric power cost = 2.5 /kWh 90% duty cycle.

Hydrogen production costs from electrolysis are highly dependent on electricity prices (Table 6.7). For an electrolyzer efficiency of 70%, each 1-cent increase in electricity prices raises the produced hydrogen cost by 0.47 /kg. At the average price paid for electricity by residential users in 2003 (8.97cents/kWh ), it would cost about 4.44 /kg to produce... 

High cost is probably the major reason why only a small percentage of the world s current hydrogen production comes from electrolysis. To replace all the gasoline sold in the United States today with hydrogen from electrolysis would require a doubling of the electrical power that is sold in the United States at the present time which is about 4 trillion kW. 

Figure 7.5a, for example, illustrates the most direct implementation of the Combined PV-electrolysis configuratiOTi. Commercially available photovoltaic (PV) panels are coupled with separate commercial electrolyzer units, such as alkaline or PEM electrolyzers and appropriate power-conditioning equipment is utilized to load-match the processes. This is the clear path to near-term renewable solar hydrogen, but it is by no means inexpensive. Based on recent cost studies from the NREL, hydrogen production cost would exceed 10/kg for PV electricity cost at... 

Hydrogen production from wind energy has not been implemented in large-scale WFs yet. The main reason for this, apart from the high cost, is that the present commercially available electrolyzers are designed to operate at lower capacities. An increase in the size of an electrolyzer is achieved by connecting electrolysis stacks in series. 

On the other hand, there is a need for reducing energy consumption while producing hydrogen through electrolysis in order to reduce the cost of hydrogen production when obtained from water in order to prioritize its production independently from hydrocarbons. 

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