Volume 41: Energy Transitions toward Carbon Neutrality: Part IV

Performance Analysis of a Combined Solar Thermochemical High-temperature Electrolysis System Qiangqiang Zhang, Tianzeng Ma, Hongjun Wang, Xin Li

Abstract

Solid oxide electrolysis cells (SOEC) can be used for efficient hydrogen production. However, the SOEC needs both high-temperature steam and hydrogen as feed gas. This paper proposed a new system that combines a solar thermochemical reactor and SOEC together. The simulation results indicate that although the combined system can avoid additional hydrogen sources, it also lowers the hydrogen yield by 61.41% due to the discontinuous H2O/H2 supply. Multiple solar reactors can provide mixed H2O/H2 alternatively thus extending the gas feeding period for SOEC. A combined system with double reactors can increase the hydrogen yield by 94.67% compared with a single-reactor SOEC system. Compared with the traditional SOEC system, the single-reactor SOEC system and double-reactor SOEC system can save heating electricity by 25.69% and 42.2% respectively.

Keywords solar thermochemical, combined system, solid oxide electrolysis, solar fuel