On day 2 of CERAWeek by S&P Global 2023, Soufien Taamallah, Senior Engineering Product Manager for Electric Hydrogen (EH2), and Carol Zhang, Business Development Manager for EH2, delivered a presentation titled “Fossil-free hydrogen at fossil-parity cost.” The session focused on EH2’s 100-megawatt (MW) turnkey electrolysis plant and how the facility decreases the levelized cost of H₂ (LCOH) and ammonia.

The presentation began with Taamallah’s colleague, Zhang describing the company’s method of commercializing the next generation of fully integrated and ultra-low-cost, large-scale electrolyzer systems to meet the industrial scale and price point. According to Zhang, EH2 offers integrated products that give customers everything they need to turn medium-volt electricity and water into high-pressure and high-purity H₂. This includes gas separation, thermal management, plant control, water treatment and power conversion (converts AC into DC current, powering electrolyzer stacks and balances plant loads) systems.

“When describing how our product is truly differentiated, we like to use three words: powerful, scalable and more manufacturable,” Zhang said. “When we say powerful, we mean we have an electrolyzer technology that is able to achieve the highest yield per cell area in the market. For the customer, this means you get a high-efficiency plant, energy and capital wise.”

Zhang went on to describe the product’s scalability, citing the total global installed capacity of electrolyzers at about 300 MW or 400 MW. “One of our products is anywhere from a third to a fourth of global installed capacity,” Zhang said. “From a customer perspective, if you are an industrial player looking to decarbonize, you cannot decarbonize in 1-MW to 2-MW increments; you need to think about the gigawatt size.” Regarding manufacturability, EH2’s cells have the highest yield in the market, according to Zhang.

As far as costs, Zhang describes a scenario where an original equipment manufacturer offers cell stacks, noting that the company must build other components to produce a complete plant product. This can cost upward of $1500/kW. “Through offering this standardized, scalable model, we can offer transformative CAPEX reduction that sits at about $800/kW,” said Zhang. “Our innovation approach is truly focused on the LCOH.”

Taamallah continued the session by presenting a case study about applying EH2’s technology at an ammonia production facility. Ammonia is a feedstock for fertilizer, and an ammonia synthesis plant requires about 250 tpd of H₂ for ammonia production. This equates to about 500-MW electrolysis run at total capacity.

The case study covered an ammonia plant in Oklahoma, U.S., looking to build the plant with green H₂. According to Taamallah, when looking at 20 yr of plant operation, they must determine how they will power the electrolyzer. Typically, it would be powered by the grid or dedicated solar and wind power, and in this situation, onshore wind was used.

“How much does it cost for our ammonia customer to produce the H₂,” Taamallah said. “With the production tax credit (PTC), they are looking at $0.16 to the $1. Before subsidies, we are looking at $4/kg, and if you include wind and H₂ PTC, our customers are fully offsetting the cost, which ends up at $16/kg.” According to Taamallah, to convert this to an ammonia plant cost, including the H₂ storage cost, EH2 customers can produce ammonia at a levelized cost of $385/t.

Story by: Tyler Campbell, Managing Editor, H₂Tech