Kilowatt-scale solar hydrogen production system using a concentrated integrated photoelectrochemical device

Isaac Holmes-Gentle, Saurabh Tembhurne, Clemens Suter and Sophia Haussener ()
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Isaac Holmes-Gentle: Laboratory of Renewable Energy Science and Engineering, EPFL
Saurabh Tembhurne: Laboratory of Renewable Energy Science and Engineering, EPFL
Clemens Suter: Laboratory of Renewable Energy Science and Engineering, EPFL
Sophia Haussener: Laboratory of Renewable Energy Science and Engineering, EPFL

Nature Energy, 2023, vol. 8, issue 6, 586-596

Abstract: Abstract The production of synthetic fuels and chemicals from solar energy and abundant reagents offers a promising pathway to a sustainable fuel economy and chemical industry. For the production of hydrogen, photoelectrochemical or integrated photovoltaic and electrolysis devices have demonstrated outstanding performance at the lab scale, but there remains a lack of larger-scale on-sun demonstrations (>100 W). Here we present the successful scaling of a thermally integrated photoelectrochemical device—utilizing concentrated solar irradiation—to a kW-scale pilot plant capable of co-generation of hydrogen and heat. A solar-to-hydrogen device-level efficiency of greater than 20% at an H2 production rate of >2.0 kW (>0.8 g min−1) is achieved. A validated model-based optimization highlights the dominant energetic losses and predicts straightforward strategies to improve the system-level efficiency of >5.5% towards the device-level efficiency. We identify solutions to the key technological challenges, control and operation strategies and discuss the future outlook of this emerging technology.

Date: 2023
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DOI: 10.1038/s41560-023-01247-2

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