German firm thyssenkrupp, launches advanced water electrolysis

As renewable energy sources continue their global success story, the demand for integrating them into the current energy and industry landscape has seen a sharp rise in Ghana. thyssenkrupp now offers a key technology for renewables integration: industrial scale water electrolysis for large projects in Ghana.

By splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen, this technology delivers “green” hydrogen, a clean, CO2-free energy carrier. The only inputs needed are water and renewable electricity from wind, hydro power or photovoltaics. “Green” hydrogen production is ideal for long-term energy storage, hydrogen mobility and other applications, making optimal use of renewable energy sources.

Based on worldwide leading electrolysis technologies, experts from thyssenkrupp have developed a solution which makes large-scale hydrogen production from electricity economically attractive. The advanced water electrolysis features a well-proven cell design paired with an especially large active cell area of 2.7 m2. By further optimizing the proven “Zero-Gap” electrolysis technology (leaving virtually no gap between membrane and electrodes), very high efficiencies of more than 82% are achieved.

The Ghana government has asked public sector institutions to ensure cost-efficiency in the implementation of infrastructure projects, to reduce financial wastage and protect the taxpayer’s money. With the launch of cost-efficient water electrolysis for large scale chemical projects, it is a lot likely for Ghana projects to not exceed budgets.

“At thyssenkrupp, we remain confident that our technologies will continue to support local and regional industrialization initiatives. We are constantly engaging with our partners, both at Public and Private sector, to develop projects that promote growth and development in Ghana and West Africa.” says Seth Miah, Regional Manager West Africa for thyssenkrupp.

All across the region, there is a drive towards establishing petrochemical hubs and providing stable energy. At thyssenkrupp we have solutions to meet these challenges and we provide these solutions in a sustainable manner

Sami Pelkonen, CEO of the Electrolysis & Polymers Technologies business unit at thyssenkrupp Industrial Solutions: “With our water electrolysis process, we have successfully brought a technology to market maturity which is of major significance for the energy transition. We are now able to offer our customers a wealth of sustainable solutions which will help to bridge the gap between renewable energy production and consumption. Green hydrogen as a clean, CO2-free starting point can be used in a variety of ways: for energy storage, mobility, and the production of sustainable chemicals.”

New, cost-efficient plant type for “green” hydrogen projects

To make deployment of large hydrogen projects as easy as possible, the thyssenkrupp technology is available in pre-fabricated, skid mounted standard modules. They easily add up to the desired project size, potentially into the hundreds of megawatt range. The patented design is based on thyssenkrupp’s well proven, leading electrolysis technologies. To date, the Group company thyssenkrupp Uhde Chlorine Engineers has successfully completed more than 600 electrochemical plants worldwide.

“Based on decades of experience in developing and building electrolysis plants, we have designed our product to meet our client’s most important demands: easy to deliver and install, highly efficient, with minimized investment and operation cost. And we have an industrial-scale supply chain of 600 MW per year already in place”, says Roland Käppner, Head of Energy Storage and Hydrogen at thyssenkrupp Uhde Chlorine Engineers.

Within the Carbon2Chem® project, one of the global flagship projects for carbon-neutral value chains, the advanced alkaline water electrolysis by thyssenkrupp was already commissioned successfully. It will provide the necessary hydrogen for producing chemicals from steel plant flue gas.

Turning energy into sustainable chemicals

Hydrogen is not only a clean energy carrier, be it for long-term energy storage in the gas grid, or for clean fuels e.g. for fuel cell mobility. When produced from renewable energy, it can make the production of key chemicals sustainable. One good example is “green” ammonia: With the water electrolysis technology and its world-class ammonia process, thyssenkrupp can deliver integrated plants which can produce ammonia from nothing but water, air and sunlight or wind. The ammonia can be further processed into fertilizers.