Investigation of the Automation Capability of Electrolyzers Production

The predicted effects of climate change on the environment are well known. To meet the two-degree target, the major economic nations committed to significantly reduce their greenhouse gas emissions medium and long term. This goal was fixed in the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement. The ambitious goal is a climate neutral economy. However, expanding the power grids and increasing the amount of sustainably produced electrical energy will not be sufficient. Thus, the German government is striving to establish hydrogen as an alternative energy carrier in a market ramp-up. The generation of hydrogen is realized in a climate-neutral and sustainable way by hydrogen electrolyzers. There are already many efficient electrolyzers on the global market. Although there is a wide variety of different approaches and technologies, all electrolyzers have one thing in common: due to a currently still low demand, their production is predominantly workshop-oriented with a high number of manual processes. However, a fully automated mass production of electrolyzers is necessary for the desired increased use of hydrogen. In a first step, this paper presents the state of the art of electrolyzers. From this study, similarities and differences can be derived between the various technologies and categorized regarding an automation solution. Categories are: the type of electrolysis technology, the performance class or weights and dimensions of individual components. With this, the manufacturing processes were examined, and a feasibility and profitability analysis of possible automation solutions was carried out.