A Petri Net-Based Asset Management Model for Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Electrolyser Balance of Plant

Reliability analysis of hydrogen energy devices such as polymer electrolyte membrane electrolysers (PEMEs) requires dynamic modelling to account for interacting components and fluctuating operating conditions. Traditional static reliability techniques often rely on simplified assumptions, such as independent component failures, and therefore cannot adequately model critical phenomena such as cell degradation, interactions between cell failures in the PEME stack, or the effects of changing environmental conditions. This paper addresses these limitations by proposing a novel Petri Net-based asset management model for a PEME Balance of Plant (BoP). It integrates the processes of cell-stack degradation, BoP component failures, inspection, and maintenance. The Petri Net model repress ents dynamic behaviours, concurrent processes, and interdependencies among system components, providing a comprehensive means of evaluating degradation and availability. The model also captures concurrent degradation and failure interactions between the cells and the BoP components, including the power supply and water subsystem. In addition, the lifetime and operational performance of a PEME are strongly influenced by a range of operating conditions, which include, the operating power, water purity, water flow rate, temperature, pressure, and current density, all of which are incorporated into the model, given their significant impact on both cell degradation and overall system reliability. Monte Carlo simulation is employed to quantify degradation and failure patterns, and to compute reliability and availability metrics. The results demonstrate the suitability of the proposed Petri Net-based asset management framework and its potential to support asset management decision makers within the renewable hydrogen production industry.