HyControl: Electrolyzer Model for Chemical Plants of the Future

The energy transition challenges the chemical industry to adapt its production facilities to the fluctuating availability of renewable energy. This requires significantly greater load flexibility to produce chemicals such as methanol in a climate-friendly, efficient, and cost-effective manner.

In collaboration with Forschungszentrum Jülich and TLK Energy, NEUMAN & ESSER has launched the funded project HyControl to demonstrate how the development process for future chemical plants can be significantly accelerated using a hardware-in-the-loop (HiL) test bench.

HiL saves time and costs in the development process by simulating real operating conditions. This allows results to be shown even before a plant has been built. At HyControl, HiL is used to adapt control and regulation strategies for future chemical plants to the fluctuating supply of green energy as quickly and cost-effectively as possible.

Load-flexible control systems for chemical plants will be of great importance in the future, as increasingly small, decentralized plants are being built and connected directly to local renewable energy generators. Energy fluctuations have a significantly greater impact on these plants than on current fossil-fuel-powered plants. NEUMAN & ESSER will supply a model of an electrolyzer as well as the integrated automation and monitoring system for HyControl.

“Decentralized production facilities will play a much greater role in the energy system of the future. Our 5-MW containerized electrolyzer fulfills this role. We see great potential in advanced control technology that increases the load flexibility of our modular system,” says Dr. David Jasper, HyControl Project Manager at NEUMAN & ESSER.

As part of the Energie.IN.NRW innovation contest, the HyControl project will receive a total of 1.96 million euros in funding over three years. The funds are provided by the Ministry of Economic Affairs, Industry, Climate Protection, and Energy of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia and co-financed by the European Union.