Experimental Hydrogen Plant with Metal Hydrides to Store and Generate Electrical Power

Generation of electrical energy with renewable sources is interruptible due to the primary energy characteristics (sun, wind, hydro, etc.). In these cases, it is necessary to use energy storage so increasing penetrability of these sources connected to the distribution system. This paper discusses in details some equipment and accessories of an integrated power plant using fuel cell stack, electrolyzer and metal hydrides. During the plant operation were collected the power consumption data and established the efficiency of each plant component. These data demonstrated an overall efficiency of about 11% due to the low efficiencies of the commercial electrolyzers and power inverters used in the experiments.