Operation of first solar-hydrogen system in China

The first solar-hydrogen (S-H) system in China, which consists a 2 kW PV cell array, a 48 V/300Ah lead-acid battery bank, an 0.5 Nm3/h hydrogen production capacity alkaline water electrolyzer, a 10 Nm3 LaNi5 alloy hydrogen storage tank and a 200 W H2/air PEM fuel cell, was installed in the Institute of Nuclear and New Energy Technology (INET) of Tsinghua University and has been operated for several months. The goal of the system was to study the technical and economical feasibility of using such a system to produce hydrogen in large scale for the future hydrogen energy society. With two months operation, experimental results reveal 40.68% energy transformed to hydrogen with 7.21 kWh/Nm3 H2 electricity consumption. Economic analysis results illustrate that the present system is not cost-efficient and the energy conversion efficiencies of PV panel and electrolyzer are suggested to increase in technology improvement to cut down cost.