Global warming and extreme climate phenomena, net-zero carbon emissions has been the goal of countries in the world. Among alternatives solutions of fossil fuels, hydrogen energy has attracted widespread attention. The main reason is green hydrogen energy with zero carbon emissions which has significant application opportunities in the fields of renewable energy, industry and transportation. Therefore, hydrogen energy is considered one of the key solutions to address energy issues.
 
Currently, the most environmentally friendly option is green hydrogen, which utilizes renewable energy to electrolyze water, producing hydrogen with almost no carbon emissions in the process. The field of hydrogen energy can be divided into electrolytic hydrogen and fuel cell applications. Moreover, electrolytic stack modules are mostly customized and towards to high power development. The longer stack length with higher voltage required. Numbers of stacks in parallel and larger stacks area which imply electrolytic hydrogen requires a higher electric current.

The hydrogen produced through electrolysis is transported either via hydrogen storage tanks or pipelines to various application sites. Currently, the most widely used application is in fuel cells. The fuel cell stack is composed of multiple plates and membranes. After adding hydrogen and oxygen into fuel cell, the chemical energy is converted into electrical energy for use. The characteristic of a fuel cell stack is that the voltage decreases as the operating current increases. More stacks in a fuel cell stack means with higher power output of the fuel cell. Therefore, in the selection of the electrolysis power supplies, constant current and programmable current control function of power supplies are needed. In the selection of fuel cell power supplies, wide input voltage range and high-power rating of power supplies are requested, and user should note that fuel cell stack voltage increase with using life and aging.

The feature of MEAN WELL power supplies is that single model has multiple voltage models with a wide voltage range design to fit market applications. Users can achieve programmable output voltage (PV) and programmable output current (PC) functions for power supplies which can be implemented through the communication interface and external voltage. Figure 1 shows the application combination of hydrogen energy system and MEAN WELL power supplies. MEAN WELL power supplies have deployed AC-DC modular and 3+N system power products in the field of electrolytic hydrogen with a maximum capacity of up to 510 kW. DC-DC power supplies can provide up to 2KW, AC-DC bi-directional power supplies can provide up to 220KW and DC-AC inverter power supplies can provide up to 90KW for fuel cell applications. Currently, MEAN WELL can provide more power supplies solutions based on customer application needs in the field of hydrogen electrolysis, fuel cells and renewable energy.
 

Figure 1: Application Combination of Hydrogen Energy System and MEAN WELL Power Supplies
 

For more information about hydrogen energy, please refer to the complete article.

For inquiries about products and application requirements, please contact MEAN WELL distributors or MEAN WELL technicians.
Also, do not forget to stay tuned for online products and solutions courses on MEAN WELL virtual EXPO.