Work

Heat pump integration for waste heat recovery from a 20 MWe green hydrogen plant to increase global efficiency

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: This paper is focused on the technical and economic analysis of waste heat availability in a 20 MW e green hydrogen (H 2 ) production plant, considering not only waste heat from the polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) electrolyser cooling circuit, but also from hydrogen and oxygen compression stages . The main objective is to study the behavior of this waste heat along 10 years, until electrolyser End of Life (EoL), representing a maximum of 37.4 % of the total energy consumed by the plant, at an average temperature of 56.5 °C. On the other hand, waste heat upgrade is assessed as a key factor to increase global plant efficiency and so, a strong source to reduce current hydrogen price. In this case, hot water generation through heat pump technology for a 90 °C district heating network is analyzed to define equivalent CO 2 emission removal and economic savings, which make the investment technical and economically feasible. At electrolyser EoL, global plant efficiency increases from a present value of 56.5 % up to 90.1 % if heat pump upgrading is considered.

Source: International Journal of Hydrogen Energy

DOI: 10.1016/j.ijhydene.2025.04.202

Authors: Mercedes Gómez- de- Arteche -Botas, Jon Iturralde- Iñarga, Carlos Fúnez-Guerra

Institution: Iberdrola (Spain)

Language: English

Topic: Hybrid Renewable Energy Systems

Subfield: Energy Engineering and Power Technology

Field: Energy

Domain: Physical Sciences

SDGs: Affordable and clean energy, Responsible consumption and production, Climate action, Industry, innovation and infrastructure

Open Access status: hybrid

Estimated APC paid: $3,730