Products

RE Hydrogen offers two unique products, i.e. electrolysers and hydrogen compressor. They have demonstrated a novel manufacturing method for cost effective production of atmospheric electrolysers using plastic materials and non-precious "regenerative" metal catalyst. Their material cost of a stack is estimated at £75/kW and the retail cost is estimated at £300/kW. Mass production will improve this even further. In contrast, the conventional pressurised electrolyser’s stack costs £2000/ kW.

Due to the lack of suitable hydrogen compressors from 1-10bar pressure range, it has become an industry practice to build 10-15bar pressurised electrolysers, which increases their cost by 90% compared to our atmospheric electrolysers. However pressurised electrolysers still need a costly hydrogen compressor to reach to any meaningful hydrogen storage pressure e.g. 350 bar or beyond.

RE Hydrogen has solved the problems of the non-availability of hydrogen compressor for atmospheric electrolysers by developing our own compressor to pressurise hydrogen from 1bar up to 350 bar in a single stage, at 50% higher efficiency and 70% lower cost than conventional hydrogen compressors.

RE Hydrogen's atmospheric electrolysers and their compresor will offer significant better overall efficiency than conventional 15bar electrolysers and a conventional compressor. A peer reviewed detail report published in the International Journal of Hydrogen Energy on this subject can be downloaded from here.

Electrolyser

RE Hydrogen has developed 5kW stacks. They are currently building a 5kW fully automatic integrated systems which will be supplied to BOC under the RABH2 project (www.rabh2.co.uk) and a couple of 5kW electrolysers will be field tested by Flexitricity Ltd (http://www.flexitricity.com/) for grid balancing trial at Dunsfold Park, Surrey.

These 5kW electrolyser can produce up to 2.3 kg hydrogen per day which can have a number of applications. For eaxmple 2.3 kg hydrogen can produce 34 kWh electricity and 56 kWh heat by a typical fuel cell. In transport applications this 2.3 kg hydrogen would give 200km driving range by a typical fuel cell car and this will be suitable for home refuelling market segment along with RE Hydrogen's own hydrogen compressors. RE Hydrogen can integrate their modular stacks together to build bigger system e.g. 25kW, 100kW and even MW scale electrolysers in due course.

RE Hydrogen’s production cost of this green hydrogen can be as low as at £3/kg depending on the electricity rate. The economic value of this 2.3 kg hydrogen would be from £27- £250/day depending on the applications. 60% cost of this hydrogen is due electricity cost therefore cheap or free electricity makes significant cost reduction by RE Hydrogen’s electrolysers than conventional electrolysers. In conventional electrolyser the electricity contributes only 22% of the overall cost of hydrogen and their high initial capital cost contributes up to 50% of the cost of hydrogen. (See the adjacent pie chart).

Hydrogen Compressor

RE Hydrogen has developed a working prototype for 6Nm³/hour gas flow rate which is suitable for a 30kW electrolyser. This hydrogen compressor would be 50% more efficient and 70% lower cost than conventional hydrogen compressors on the market. This compressor will be suitable for small or high flow rate and high pressure output up to 700bar. RE Hydrogen is working to develop their low cost and highly effcient hydrogen dispenser for refuelling applications at 350bar and 700bar.

This low cost highly scalable compressor can also be used to compress other gases apart from hydrogen. This compressor will increase the marketability of RE Hydrogen's low cost atmospheric electrolysers. RE Hydrogen is exploring options for commercialisation and rapid deployment of this compressor on the market for hydrogen, air, oxygen, nitrogen, syngas and natural gas compression based applications. This compressor can tolerate impurities in the gas such as moisture, tar, oil, particulates etc.

Unique Selling Points

i) Electrolyser stacks are leak free fully sealed systems leading to reduced maintenance cost.

ii) The catalyst coating can be regenerated in-situ without taking the cells apart.

iii) These electrolysers can undergo unlimited on-off switching cycles.
iv) RE Hydrogen does not use any precious metal catalyst.

v) The manufacturing cost of the stack is only £75/kW. But conventional electrolyser’s stack costs £2000/kW.
vi) They can produce green hydrogen at as low as £3/kg.

vii) The electricity cost for RE Hydrogen is about 60% of the total production cost of hydrogen. Therefore they can reduce the cost of hydrogen even much lower when cheap & excess renewable electricity would be available via grid balancing services. In contrast conventional electrolysers have electricity costs contribution is only 22%. Therefore a small percentage increase in efficiency in RE Hydrogen’s system leads to much bigger reduction in hydrogen cost.

viii) RE Hydrogen's hydrogen compressor is 50% more energy efficient at 70% lower cost than the market price. These compressors are highly scalable from a very small flow rate of hydrogen to very high flow rate. The patented compressor allows compression ratio up to 1: 350bar in a single stage from atmospheric pressure and up to 700bar in two stages. These compressors will also be suitable for compressing air for back up power applications.