Accelerating Solid Oxide Platform Technology Development through Nano to Mega Scale Electrolyser Models

Ceres is a leading developer of clean energy technology, focusing on the development of solid oxide technologies to produce high efficiency hydrogen and power. The technology, its possible applications, and the market opportunities are evolving rapidly, so creating robust modelling and data driven engineering solutions becomes essential. To maximise business impact, modelling tools, data products, and data platforms need to form an eco-system of shareable digital solutions which enhance Ceres’ technology licencing business model. This paper presents the status of Ceres’ new modelling framework from cell to megawatt scale models, and how the models are used to: accelerate product development, evaluate new concepts and end-user applications, and reduce partner time to market. The modelling chain mimics the modular nature of Ceres’ core products, consisting of a detailed multi-physics single repeat unit cell model, a reduced order pseudo-2D physics-based stack model, and a stack array and an electrolyser module model that uses a lumped form of the stack model. In addition, complementary and integrated multi-physics models are utilized for specific design problems where higher model fidelity is required. By careful consideration of how the models integrate and are reduced as the scale of the models grow, a versatile modelling platform is created. This enables, for example, exploring how cell level performance is impacted by changes in the cell design, and how these changes cascade to the stack and system level, where it is then possible to rapidly determine optimum stack and system operating conditions that maximise lifetime and performance of the overall system.