Proponent may become the Contractor to Design & Build of a 500kW Anionic Exchange Membrane (AEM) Electrolyzer. More specific and additional details will be set out in the subsequent Solicitation. SFU reserves the right to vary the contemplated initial term and any extension term(s) of any Contract that may be issue from the Solicitation, it is presently contemplated that the initial term of the Contract will be 3 years, with option for extended warranty and maintenance contracts.
One goal of SFU’s Hydrogen Hub (www.sfu.ca/research/facilities/hydrogen-hub) is to build an anionic exchange membrane (AEM) water electrolyzer using novel fluorine-free polymer membranes developed by Ionomr Innovations (https://ionomr.com). This research initiative will de-risk scalable, next-gen hydrogen production technology at the 250 kW - 1 MW scale. Ionomr’s AEM technology is anticipated to reduce green hydrogen production costs while maintaining high performance and stability. The project will investigate and validate the AEM technology at the 250 kW - 1 MW scale, which is a critical design window that enables scaling cost advantages for green hydrogen generation.
The system will be located at the SFU’s Hydrogen Hub, an applications and science-driven research facility to be built at Simon Fraser University, located in British Columbia, Canada. The hub will generate and provide access to clean hydrogen for research, commercial, and on campus use as well as operate state of the art equipment for fuel-cell and electrolyzer testing under an open access model. It will focus on accelerating the Design, Development, Demonstration and Delivery of advanced clean hydrogen technologies.
The overall Hydrogen Hub facility design, construction and procurement will be carried out by an EPCM contractor identified in a separate procurement process from the provider identified through the present RFSQ and the subsequent Solicitation. The EPCM will be responsible for multiple engineering, procurement, and construction tasks, including provisioning for electricity and water utilities, overall systems engineering of the Hub, concrete pad geometry and placement, and the sourcing of ancillary equipment (which may include water purification, hydrogen drying and purification systems, hydrogen compression and storage systems etc.). The design and build contractor selected through the present process will be required to collaborate with the EPCM contractor to identify opportunities for cost savings, efficiencies in design choices, and opportunities for dual use equipment that can mitigate costs and eliminate redundant engineering and equipment (e.g. refined P&ID, dual use power supplies, versatile test equipment etc.)
The AEM electrolyzer will be utilized to demonstrate and validate the capabilities of Aemion+ third generation (or better) membrane-based stacks. Demonstrating these capabilities will require an electrolyzer balance of plant (BoP) designed to enable one of more of the following research objectives:
- Benchmarking of stack performance under a simulated load that models real world wind and solar generation profiles.
- Validating the corrosion resistance and profiles of different low cost alloys under variable temperature and pressure conditions under operational conditions using 1M hydroxide electrolyte
- Identifying sources of cost and operational efficiency through the tight monitoring of ancillary equipment performance (e.g. caustic pump performance, etc.)
- Real time electrochemical monitoring of performance at the cell, stack and BoP level.
- Comprehensive data gathering across all Electrolyzer elements for the purposes of modeling, design refinements, and advanced control algorithm development.
