Commercial-Scale Performance Predictions for High-Temperature Electrolysis Plants Coupled to Three Advanced Reactor Types

摘要

This report presents results of system analyses that have been developed to assess the hydrogen production performance of commercial-scale high-temperature electrolysis (HTE) plants driven by three different advanced reactor power-cycle combinations: a high-temperature helium cooled reactor coupled to a direct Brayton power cycle, a supercritical CO2-cooled reactor coupled to a direct recompression cycle, and a sodium-cooled fast reactor coupled to a Rankine cycle. The system analyses were performed using UniSim software. The work described in this report represents a refinement of previous analyses in that the process flow diagrams include realistic representations of the three advanced reactors directly coupled to the power cycles and integrated with the high-temperature electrolysis process loops. In addition, this report includes parametric studies in which the performance of each HTE concept is determined over a wide range of operating conditions.