Nuclear hydrogen production using PEM electrolysis integrated with APR1400 power plant

Hydrogen is a great energy carrier that has the potential to reduce pollution and greenhouse emissions if produced by renewables and clean energy systems. However, moving from dependence on fossil fuels to renewables without emissions is a giant and challenging leap. Therefore, nuclear energy is a well-established technology that can help cut emissions and produce the electricity required for hydrogen production. Electrolysis is a promising technology that uses electricity to produce hydrogen from water. This paper investigates the integration of a large-scale PEM electrolysis with the APR1400 nuclear power plant to produce hydrogen. The two subsystems are, firstly, separately modeled using energy and exergy concepts to conduct parametric analysis on each individually. These subsystems are then integrated into one system to evaluate the system performance, hydrogen production rate, and overall system efficiency. The integrated system is examined with different operation conditions. It is found that the overall thermal-to-hydrogen energy and exergy efficiencies of the integrated system are 22.9% and 53.52%, respectively, and the hydrogen production rate is 7.544 kg/s; this makes 651 t per day and 19.5 kt per month.