Large-Scale Water Electrolysis for Power-to-Gas

Rob Harvey, Rami Abouatallah, and Joseph CargnelliOver a century ago, Alexander T. Stuart began to take an interest in hydrogen energy while studying chemistry and mineralogy at the University of Toronto. At the time, Niagara Falls' hydroelectric generating capacity was being utilized at only 30%–40%. The question was: How could such surplus capacity is converted to useable energy? The obvious answer was electrolysis of water. In 1948, father and son founded the Electrolyzer Company and it became a leading designer and manufacturer of electrolytic hydrogen and oxygen generation plants for markets around the world. By the 1990s, the company had built several hundred installations in over 80 countries and 5 continents. With its 2004 acquisition of the renamed company, Stuart Energy, Hydrogenics Corporation entered the electrolytic hydrogen generation market and today it has developed a megawatt-scale proton exchange membrane (PEM) electrolyzer stack technology that will be thebuilding block platform for Power-to-Gas, a revolutionary approach to energy conversion and storage using hydrogen.