Proton exchange membrane electrolyzers (PEMEL) are considered a promising technology for intermittent generation of green hydrogen if connected to fluctuating energy sources and in volatile electricity markets. For an economic operation, a coupling of PEMEL with a battery energy storage system (BESS) is advantageous. In this work, optimized operating strategies of a grid connected PEMEL supported by a BESS are developed based on dynamic programming. Furthermore, a generic aging model is implemented to ensure that performance degradation is taken into account. The optimization is carried out for different hydrogen production targets per week based on day-ahead market electricity prices, system configurations with and without combined operation of electrolyzer and battery as well as aging effects. The results show that an optimized operating strategy can decrease the effective operating costs, i.e. electricity procurement costs and costs related to system degradation, of the considered use case by up to 7 %.
Mößle et al. (Wed,) studied this question.