DOE Releases Assessment of Electrolysis Technology--Highlighting Pathways to Cut the Cost of Hydrogen

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https://www.energy.gov/eere/fuelcells/articles/doe-releases-assessment-electrolysis-technology-highlighting-pathways-cut

DOE Releases Assessment of Electrolysis Technology—Highlighting Pathways to Cut the Cost of Hydrogen

The report shows that electrolysis has the potential to achieve the aggressive DOE Hydrogen Shot™ goal of reducing clean-hydrogen production costs to $1 per kilogram, and it details innovations needed, along with necessary technology advancements.

Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies Office

December, 4 2024

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today released a report that highlights ways to reduce the cost of producing clean hydrogen via electrolysis. The report shows that electrolysis has the potential to achieve the aggressive DOE Hydrogen Shot™ goal of reducing clean-hydrogen production costs to $1 per kilogram (kg), and it details innovations needed, along with the necessary advancements in manufacturing, technology efficiency, and integrated energy systems.

The report, Hydrogen Shot: Water Electrolysis Technology Assessment, presents a thorough assessment of key electrolysis technologies, including technology status and potential approaches for realizing the significant cost reductions needed to achieve the Hydrogen Shot goal. It is the second of three assessments of clean-hydrogen production pathways. The first report, Hydrogen Shot Technology Assessment: Thermal Conversion Approaches, examines hydrogen production processes that use heat to convert fossil and/or waste feedstocks (with carbon capture and sequestration). The third and final report in this series will provide a similar technology assessments of hydrogen production from advanced pathways, which include processes that use sunlight to directly split water without the use of electricity.

Achieving the Hydrogen Shot’s cost reduction goal can unlock new markets for hydrogen, including steel manufacturing, clean ammonia, energy storage, and heavy-duty trucking—boosting domestic energy security and resilience, creating jobs, and strengthening America’s position in global clean energy markets.

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1. HYDROGEN SHOT: Water Electrolysis Technology Assessment - CONCLUSION

https://www.energy.gov/sites/default/files/2024-12/hydrogen-shot-water-electrolysis-technology-assessment.pdf

CONCLUSION

The use of water electrolyzers for hydrogen production will be critical to meeting DOE’s Hydrogen Shot goal. This technology assessment pulls from numerous resources to summarize the current state of the field in terms of cost, commercial and manufacturing readiness, performance, lifetime, and deployment, while highlighting opportunities for advances through RDD&D across several different types of electrolyzers: PEM, LA, O-SOEC, AEM, and P-SOEC.

With well-focused, sustained investments in RDD&D, and based on specific scenarios integrating with renewable and/or nuclear power generation, the three most commercially mature electrolyzer technologies—PEM, LA, and O-SOEC—show the potential to achieve the Hydrogen Shot goal and realize an LCOH of $1/kg within a decade. In the longer term, the two lower-TRL technologies—AEM and P-SOEC—have potential advantages over these three with successful further technology developments. The techno-economic analysis conducted here utilized technical inputs from a number of sources referenced throughout this document, using published electrolyzer technical targets. It is based on clean energy scenarios representing the current grid, current clean energy resources, and future projections of hybrid clean energy systems. Other factors that influence cost, such as the sale of byproducts or the Clean Hydrogen Production Tax Credit (45V), were not considered in this analysis but could further reduce the LCOH.

The five electrolyzer technologies included in this assessment are on different technology development timelines and at different levels of commercialization. Furthermore, the different technologies will be more competitive in some end uses and with certain clean energy resources than others. With government and industry projections of significant growth in demand for clean hydrogen for multiple end uses, it is likely that there will be viable and important roles for all of these technologies. And with such a diverse array of applications for hydrogen across multiple sectors, each with their own particular needs, it appears unlikely that only one or two electrolyzer technologies will completely dominate the market.

The key RDD&D opportunities to achieve the Hydrogen Shot goals can be bundled into three main areas: technology advancements, manufacturing and economies of scale, and clean energy system integration. Efforts in all three areas are needed; innovations in one alone will not be sufficient to reduce the cost of hydrogen to $1/kg. Achieving the Hydrogen Shot goal will require a strategic allocation of resources and efforts across these areas. DOE’s Hydrogen Program, as well as the Hydrogen Interagency Task Force, are well positioned to address these broad RD&D needs to enable cost-effective, clean H2 production in the years to come, and to play an important role in achieving national climate and energy goals.

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2. Hydrogen Electrolysis 101

Just in case you’ve been asleep for the last half century…