FURI | Fall 2019

Electrolyzer Application of a Load-Managing PV System

The purpose of this research was to determine the effectiveness of electrolyzers implemented within a load-managing PV system. The electrolyzers branch the system’s loads from test resistors, which have shown power efficiency of up to 99%, to real applications by generating sustainable hydrogen gas. An electrical model for the terminal behavior of a single electrolyzer at a resistance of 0.2 Ω*cm² was derived from a linear fit of experimental data with an r² value of 0.999. The electrolyzer models will be optimally configured in series and parallel, where simulations can be done with the PV system to determine the efficiency.