Series production of electrolysers in the gigawatt range (SEGIWA)

 

Electrical energy from renewable sources can be converted into green hydrogen, a carrier of chemical energy, and stored in this way. The conversion is carried out by means of electrolysis and represents an important step on the way to climate neutrality in Germany. Initial green hydrogen demand estimates by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) assume several hundred million tons of hydrogen per year. Against this background, the national hydrogen strategy aims to build up to five gigawatts of electrolysis capacity by 2030. To ensure that Germany plays a leading role in hydrogen technologies in the future, the BMBF is currently funding the hydrogen lead projects "H2Giga", "H2Mare" and "TransHyDE" with a total volume of 740 million euros.

The lead project "H2Giga" is investigating the mass production of hydrogen electrolysers. This is currently based on a large proportion of manual work in the manufacturing process and is associated with increased costs and limited production capacities. The aim of the project is therefore to set up series production and to produce electrolysers with great flexibility of use and at a competitive price. The flexibility of use is supported by a modular product structure that allows electrolysers to be adapted to different performance requirements.

In the integrated sub-project SEGIWA, the WZL is researching the series production of modular PEM electrolysers in close cooperation with partners from industry and research. The goal in this context is to scale up electrolyser production to fully automated series production in the gigawatt range. This must also meet the highest industry quality standards. The basis for scalability is the design and implementation of automated production processes based on an analysis of the status quo. A production system and factory concept that can be scaled in stages should ensure the cost-effectiveness and efficiency of a rapid production ramp-up. A high degree of changeability should ensure adaptability to possible changes in technology and products. In order to reduce planning effort and interface losses between planning and operation during the scaling of production, the latest methods of integrated production planning are applied. For cost-effective and high-quality production, work steps are improved and automated by robotics. Particularly challenging here are optimizations of the coating processes and the stability of the electrolyser components.

During the project, data is collected and analysed at interdisciplinary interfaces in order to make the production processes visible, evaluable and optimisable. In order to make the potential of production and factory planning usable in the long term, a digital factory model will be developed at the start of the project and continuously maintained and expanded. The interface-oriented cooperation between industry and research partners based on the module map of the Aachen factory planning approach forms the basis in project mode for realising targeted project successes. In this way, production, production and factory planning as well as IT systems and their planning can be closely coordinated between the consortium partners.