Tech Talks - Hydrogen Compression System - Hydrogen Refueling Explained - Hyfindr Heller
Watching Hyfindr helped me a ton. Thank you. Cool. This is getting better and better. I could do this all day with you. Yeah, yeah. Hi, guys. Welcome to Texas. I'm with Total Hydrogen Solutions. They specialise in gas compression for hydrogen and many other
things. I'm here to see Greg. Let me see if I find him. Hi, Greg. How are you? Good. Thanks for having us? So we're here to understand what you guys do. Because I know hydrogen compression is super important, but you do even much more. Oh, yes. What is this?
Well, this is.. So this is a, power backup plant. That's all hybrid system, clean energy. So you have your solar? Yes. So we have solar in here. Ideally, you know, really what's going to happen is there are a whole lot more on the roof of the customer.
And then we have that coming in into our system. So everything you see here is stuff that we've all integrated. All right. So you have the electrical panel. These are.. The battery system on the bottom.
Okay. This is all the electrical stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So all the PLC work. Electrical work. Okay. The panels over on this side. So with a hybrid system. So for this one,
the customer wanted to have a battery system and a hydrogen fuel cell system. All right. So what we have here is coming from the solar or from the grid. We're charging up the batteries. These are flow batteries down here. We've integrated all the thermal equipment and everything. Yeah, that's even more. Yeah. So this is actually still in construction.
Okay. But we.. So we're going to add a few more banks of batteries here. And then on the other side we'll go a hydrogen fuel cell as well. Okay. So batteries will take kind of the initial load and the fuel cell will provide that. And you can charge a vehicle here or what is this for? Yep. Yep. Yeah. So, this is kind of a simple slow charger, but we could fit.. outfit a fast charger on here as well. Oh, yeah. okay. So let's go into your workshop, because I know you have lots of
details that you can show there. Great. So let's go. Good. Yes. Greg. So what exactly is a hydrogen compression system? Yeah. So in simplest terms it's any system that's compressing hydrogen, taking it from a lower pressure going to higher pressure. Okay I've got an example right here. All right. So we can actually see how it works. Yep. Yeah. So what we're doing here is we've got a source of hydrogen here. These are electrolysers.
This is an electrolyser system. So the hydrogen comes out here? Yep. Okay. And it comes out at low pressure about 30 to 35 bar. It starts to build up in our buffer tank over here. And then we bring that down into a compressor right here. So that's a pneumatic booster. And what that does is it's pushing back and forth when it's operating and going into a higher pressure tank over here. So we have
two different tanks two different pressures. Our low low pressure and then our medium pressure. So this one builds up what pressure? So this will go initially it goes to 350 bar. Okay. But it'll also go all the way up to 700 bar for refills. Okay. So that will go in there. And what is what is this part here? Yeah. So this is all the controls. So there's a lot of automation here as well. So, set without.. It could be set to go on its own essentially for quite a while. So it'll read the buffer pressure here. So once it gets up to 30 bar. Yeah. The Electrolysers
don't want too much back pressure. Right. So that's when we start compressing. Okay. And then so the when once it gets below ten bar, we don't want to starve the boosters. Yeah. So then we stop. And let it build up pressure again. Okay. Yep. So you're basically building up. You're keeping a nice pressure on the side of the electrolysers, and then at the same time, filling up your booster. When, do you stop? Yeah. You.. at any time. I mean,
when the tank is full, what happens? Yeah. So there's also automatic switches that would stop the compressor when it's too full to make sure we don't over pressurise. All right. So a lot of that's what's behind the panel. There's all sorts of gauges and switches that make sure that we don't go into any dangerous scenarios. So you had the buffer and you had the other one. What what pressure level is that the one where 350 bar. 350 bar. And this is a.. what is this? Yeah. So this is the system we built for our customer. HNO. So this is.. They desire to have a
compact hydrogen refuelling station. So something that could be mobile could be paired with five, ten, 15 of the Enapter electrolysers. All right. And have the ability to fill a Toyota mirai. Okay. So that is what essentially would.. Does that come up off? Oh yeah. Okay. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So. Right. So this is a way nozzle. So what we do here. And actually if we had the vehicle, we would be receiving,
some feedback so we would know what the pressure and the temperature of the, of the car. Of the car is. Okay. Yeah, that's the infrared, connection that you can see here. Okay. So that goes right there. Yeah. That's nice that you could actually see that because, you know, on the ones that you see on the highway, normally you don't see the temperature, you know, that's going on. But there you have it. Yeah. So that feeds into.. And is this the same, compressor that does the 700 bar for the vehicle as well? Yes, sir. Yeah. Okay. So but you
don't have a storage for that. So that goes straight. Straight. Yep. So as we call it a top off. Right. We could fill a even higher pressure tank and cascade fill. So we do a lot of systems where we do very high pressure. But for this simple kind of demonstration, we just wanted to settle with some simple steel tanks. So okay, we started by saying what is a hydrogen compression system? And I mean, everyone knows that this is a compressor. Yeah, and those are tanks. But, for what I understand now, what you do is the compression system. Yeah. So,
you know, connecting it with all these things so that in the end, you get a nice pressure that you want out of your, electrolyser system, which is delivering at a certain pressure. All right. Okay. Maybe you can take it a little bit broader. I know that you do more applications. Can you take us a bit deeper into into the whole subject? Yeah. So you said there's different scenarios. Obviously we've seen the one, refuelling application. But when we talk hydrogen compression, do we see that anywhere else?
Yes. So a few different scenarios. One is for a large Electrolyser, so hydrogen production. Yes. And our main challenges with that is we're starting at very low pressures. We have high compression ratios. So compression ratio is just what it
sounds like. A 10 to 1, would be 30 bar to 300 bar. All right. So that little tank of 30 bar. Yeah. If you're hooking that up to a large electrolyser that's going to fill up very quickly and the electrolysers will get too much back pressure. So we have to kind of model out, you know, how big of a buffer storage do we want? We want to make sure that we're, achieving the right flows. Yeah. So enough hydrogen is going through these compressors. Okay.
So here we see, the electrolyser system and that's the low pressure. And then you, are basically managing these two compressors and managing the two tank systems to get the right. Yep. Pressure. So that's that. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So any hydrogen generation plant they're going to have some level of pressure that they want to store it at sometimes multiple levels as well. And we can have compressors that, you know, compress to one pressure and
at all times or maybe multiple pressures. So there's a lot of controls that go into that. Okay. So this is one scenario with the electrolyser which is similar to this. Yes. You have other ones. Yeah. Yeah. So a pretty common scenario too is just a in a refuelling scenario where people are
having hydrogen being dropped off. Yeah. So you know, here's a little tube trailer. Like a trailer coming in. Okay. Right. Yeah. Or it can be in pods that are dropped off. Drop and swap. Yeah. And the challenge with that is, we can regulate the flow, but we have a pressure that's decreasing because as a tube trailer is getting lower and lower and dispensing the pressure is dropping. All right. So we have to control to make sure that we can.. Usually what people want
is speed. Okay. We want to make sure that we can fill up our tanks and and do the amount of refilling that we need. Yeah. So we have a changing variable of a pressure that's always dropping. So these compressors as that inlet pressure is dropping over here. Yeah. These compressors are moving the hydrogen slower and slower. Okay. And so we have to do some smart
controls when the trailer is very low we might switch to being in series instead of in parallel. All right. So you think again let's say it's, you know, all the way down to, you know, 50 bar. Yeah. This might take it up to, you know, 300 bar. And then this will take
it up to, you know, you're 520 or so. All right. Okay. So that means, so all the piping is in place. You are just switching valves to, get it into this. Yeah. So a lot of controls and and believe it or not, a lot of the controls, we have a lot that are electrically driven, but a lot of them are mechanical. To seam different pressures and making.. Okay, so they just they just react based on what pressure they see and then they flip over. All
right. Yeah. And how fast are these? How fast would this scenario switch to that? Is it a.. Oh, milliseconds. Milliseconds? We're talking. Right. Yeah. Okay. That's interesting. Yes. Yeah. Okay. right. So and then the compressors take that. They are happy to work with whatever.
Yeah. So that's another thing that, is important and our role is making sure we're selecting the right compressor technology. All right. So different types of compressors inherently do better at starting and stopping and adjusting than others. Some don't like that. But there's other compressors that do really well. You're very very low pressure. Yeah. Yeah. But they want to be steady all the time. So sometimes we even deal with hybrid technologies. So we'll have to. Totally different times. Okay. So
I know you're an expert at this so maybe just a really quick one. So if you.. What would be a combination. You have the.. you know, like a hybrid one. What two types of compressors would you combine and why would you do that. Yeah. So we would combine a diaphragm compressor. We have a very low inlet, very steady flow. Yeah.
To get.. Because if we can be predictable and it's not a system that's turning on or turning off, it's a grid connected electrolyser or another steady flow of hydrogen. Yeah. That'd be great for getting to our initial storage pressure. All right. And then we would top that off with a booster, something that needs to turn on and turn off when a vehicle kind of comes in. And what kind of compressor would that booster be?
Yeah. So that's just a boost compression system. Okay. With the pistons. Okay. The pistons. Okay. Right. Pneumatically driven, hydraulically driven. All right. Like you saw earlier. Okay. Cool. What other applications do you have?
Or that's all? Yeah. So there's one more. So this is a really good for a boost compressor. Yeah. So this is kind of a breakdown of a refuelling scenario. So before.. So for this scenario we've got three pressure banks. All right. After
refuelling you have low pressure. Now your medium pressure is relatively low. And your, you know, high pressure you have a little bit less of. So different tanks system that are there okay. Different tanks. So what a compressor can do is consolidate that. So now you have your higher pressures and you can do more of a full refilling after the fact. So taking your volumes and consolidating them into the pressures you need so you can do a full fill later. Okay. So then then it's all in order again basically. So basically you're moving stuff
from one tank to the other. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Actually that is a whole big topic. And I need to say we did the video on that one as well. Yeah, I learned a lot from that. Yeah, yeah I did. It's very interesting. You know. It's actually, it's like organ pipes you
know, you have different types of valves and how they do that. So yeah, it's nice to see all these applications. I know you guys put them in action. Maybe we can, we can still see some more, on your hardware? Yes. Outside. Absolutely. Let's go take a look there. Yeah. Great. Sounds good. So, Greg, what do we have here? Yes. So this is another compression system that we're building. Okay. So that's why, you see
there's not a whole lot of piping in it. There's two compressors here? Two compressors. So these are hydraulically driven. Hydraulic compressors. We have smaller ones that are driven by air. This is driven by a hydraulic fluid. Yeah. So you can move a whole lot more gas. Yes. And you can still achieve the high pressures as well. Okay. So this is actually going to our partner, HNO is building a megawatt electrolyser plant.
So this will move 500kg a day. Wow. So these two? These two. Okay. Yep. So you got to.. Probably this is this is the initial stages here. Yeah. Yeah. So there's going to be a lot more. Yeah. Around this. Yeah. And then so this is the gas compression side. Is there more? Yes. All right. So this will be gas compression. We'll
have a heat exchanger that that we build here as well. Yeah. We have chillers that live outside that will keep that hydrogen. So it's not.. doesn't overheat. And then on this other side is our non class rated side. So this is where we have our electrical components our panel the electric motor and then the hydraulic pump that's actually moving the fluid. So this is an example of a bigger application. So megawatt.
Yep. So this end is a custom container that we designed and built. Yeah. And so we have vent stacks that need to that, are going to come through there. I can see that. Yeah. So a lot of work goes into a big metal box. Yeah. For hydrogen. I don't know if you know this. With how heavy is this going to be at the end? Oh, I think it'll be about 10,000 pounds. 10,000 pounds? Yeah. Okay. Gotta do the math now. Yeah. For the for the.. Okay. So 4000kg i think.
I don't know, I'm better at my bar. Yeah, yeah. Well, we are in Texas. Okay, cool. This is getting better and better. I could do this all day with you. Yeah, yeah. So, Greg, is there something special in this scenario? Yes. So it came to me that this is essentially kind of like shifting gears in a vehicle. So as your pressure is dropping. Yeah. This gear might work.
Yeah. Initially. But once that to that tube trailer gets very, very low, you're going to need to shift gears and, work with a compressor that can work for that pressure and still maintain good steady flows. So you're not waiting forever to fill up. All right. Okay. So you can even. Yeah. Put them after each other. And that works well?
Yes. Yeah. Yep. So what it's doing is it's taking that lower pressure feeding into here and there's of course this is a simple arrow. It's a whole lot of things. Exactly. That's more power. But then that goes into that
next compressor. So it can, you know, pressurise it up into that next higher pressure. And when we're talking about hybrid systems, this is where the scenario that we might use a hybrid system so similar to what we showed earlier of having two compressors in series. Yes, we might have one that doesn't want to do start or stop, but yeah, we can just have that going for quite a while and then boost into a much higher pressure. Okay. Great. I wanted to ask you about the safety of all of this, because I know that that's a big topic. Yeah. And and I know that things are actually safe, but can you tell us about some of the challenges and how you guys make make that happen? So one of the great things that I love, so, you know, our company is, a division of pneumatic and hydraulic. And we've been compressing gases for 65 years. So my challenge of being relatively new to this company, as I always say, high pressure, is 700 bar, a thousand bar. Okay. To them that's medium low pressure. So they've been doing pressurised gas
systems far, far higher for quite a while. So, what kind of pressure is that? 75,000 psi. All right. And these are, oil and gas applications? A lot of oil and gas and aerospace systems. So someone wants to pressure test the tank. So they've made that safe. So getting this lower levels as you would say.. Yeah.
And of course hydrogen has different properties to pay attention to. We do a majority of our work early on has always been to study out all the different, safety considerations, the different certifications and everything with that. Another thing that I really like is a lot of our systems, there's a lot of mechanical drivers in that. So a lot of backup systems. So it's not all,
you know, maintained by a computer. If there's an issue with that, there's a lot of inherent safety in the design also. Okay. So I don't know is there like so if I want to make, hydrogen compression system safe, are there like three things I need to do or something like that, you know? Well, I think selecting the right components. So components is one. Yeah. Because even in a simple system like that there's about 300 little bits and pieces. Okay. All right. So those are different failure points. Selecting the right components is really big. Making sure
that you are.. the actual build out by people who are experienced and know how to properly connect the.. connect and everything with that. That was a challenge that I've run into before. We had people who are fantastic with hydrogen, great experience, but they didn't know how to bend tube. Ah okay. In proper fittings. So sometimes it's working on the outside of the hydrogen industry experience,
people who are just experiencing high pressure gases, then I think the third thing would be to make sure that you have multiple points of backup. You know, people talk about multiple points of failure, but you also want to have multiple points of backup. Yeah. So if this valve fails or if this system fails, you have another backup system that can
prevent something to be catastrophic. So when you look at a system like this, what would be the backup that you would put here. Yeah. So a lot of that's what's behind it okay. What we don't see. Yeah. And you can you're
welcome to see. Okay. It's a pretty tight. Maybe we could, maybe take a sneak peak. Yeah. Yeah. So it's right in there. Yeah. So what is.. So, I mean, we got the basic gist of it that it's, you know, it's coming in at lower pressure. But what would the backup system do?
Would this open the valves or would it let it out. Yeah. So do you have an emergency. We have some vents. Yeah. So and so actually I can vent some right now. So you can see, the pressure is dropping right now. All right okay. So venting systems. So this is now.. it's taking out the hydrogen that's in the system. Yeah. All right.
Okay. Yeah. That is to your piping which you have outside the building. Right. Okay. We don't do any hydrogen venting indoors. Okay. Good. But again this is still a prototype kind of, you know, more of a proof of concept. So there's some things in here that we can have a bit more flexibility with. But a lot of times it's
in and isolating different parts of the system and making sure you always have proper venting. Okay. So I guess that's another safety consideration, you know, and this this was pretty mechanical. You if the electricity goes down on this, what happens?
Yeah. So that's another thing where it's good to have your mechanical systems. Yeah. And then we have a mixture of solenoid valves that are if they are electrically.. So solenoid valves will be electrically controlled. We have a normally open valve. So power goes off. Yeah. so then
it's always going to safe , be safe to vent. So Greg, I guess this is a good point where we're seeing a vehicle application here. But maybe can you tell us a little bit of where you see this going in the future. Also you know more and more I know your company has done some methane
non hydrogen work. What is going in there. So how do you see the the future coming through? Yeah. So I'm really excited because I'm seeing a whole bunch of interest on different types of hydrogen production, different people really jumping in to producing better electrolysers and systems, and also people looking at the consumption side as well. So our job,
we always call ourselves just fancy plumbers and electricians. We just want to enable the hydrogen economy and, and companies to, realise their products by properly doing a system integration for them. Okay. So you guys are getting better at what you're doing. Just I know this is a pretty rough question, but like if you say in a hydrogen compression system, yeah, obviously the compressor is going to cost you I would say a considerable amount maybe the storage also going to cost you. And then well, if you are adding the production, but that's, that's one side. But like this in the compression part, what does aside from the compressor, what's the biggest cost driver there? And what does it cost to integrate? Yeah. Yeah. So it's interesting because you touched
on some good points that I always like to come in early on in conversations with customers that are trying to build out a system because they might have in mind, here's the compression, this is how much flow we need, or this is how much storage we need. Yeah, but if we can come in early enough and give some good input because sometimes it's a different play. Okay. So for example, if you wanted to achieve certain flow rates, you could do that by stacking
a whole bunch of compressors. All right. However, you could also achieve that by having a bunch of storage. All right. So sometimes it makes more sense to add a little bit more storage or a little bit more compression. And so it's helpful
for us since we know the costs of all of that and kind of the trade offs that you're doing to really understand that end of the day, what's the goal? Because people will say, I want 3.6kg a minute. Yeah, yeah. But really what they want is they want to fill five trucks at 350 bar. Okay, okay. In a relatively short period of time.
And so oftentimes, I would say the most expensive things are when people don't take that kind of integrative approach and don't look at.. but just try to look at things in the little box and they say they size a compressor for this rate. And the size of storage for this rate. When really they could have.. they might be overengineering or over sizing everything. Well thank you Greg. Honestly, you've shown very nicely how important this part is. And
I think it's also great that we did a video just on the compression system because that's super important. Also cost driving factor on this. And the better we get at this, the more we have people like you doing this. Also, considering all the other, ramifications around that, the better the cost situation will be and, yeah, the easier this technology will scale. Yeah. So thank you very much. Yeah. Great. Thank you. Yeah. Absolutely fascinating. Yeah.
I hate to say this, but I do say that because I have to learn so many things. No worries. Watching Hyfindr helped me a ton. Thank you so much. Thank you. Well, thank you for watching and we hope you enjoyed it. If yes, give us a like or go on Hyfindr.com. You can find components like these. You can meet people like Greg. You can see also these things that you need to build these systems together. So compressors as well. Give us a like go on Hyfindr. Thanks for watching.
2024-09-10 01:06
