Power Electronics Systems for Green Hydrogen Production: an overview

This paper presents a narrative review of power electronic converter topologies and architectures for energy conversion in green hydrogen production systems. A technical analysis is made regarding multiple performance metrics including total harmonic distortion (THD), current ripple, power factor, efficiency, and system complexity. The review examines AC/DC conversion topologies, covering both passive rectifiers and active front-end configurations with diverse transformer arrangements and harmonic mitigation techniques. DC/DC converter architectures are also analysed, distinguishing between non-isolated and isolated topologies, with emphasis on their operational principles, performance characteristics and practical suitability for hydrogen electrolyzer integration. Comparative analysis tables quantify key performance metrics between topologies across different power ranges and operational constraints. Additionally, the paper presents emerging technologies and modular converter structures, including current-source rectifiers, multiport converters, and modular multilevel architectures, alongside the transition toward solid-state transformers. Overall, this work provides a holistic review of the complete energy conversion chain from grid interface to electrolyzer, offering valuable insights for decision-support in topology selection in large-scale hydrogen production systems. In contrast with existing reviews, which often focus on individual conversion stages, this review seeks to fill a gap in the literature by summarizing the most relevant and technically mature topologies across the full chain with an evolutionary perspective.