Quantitative Analysis of Green H2 Production Costs: A Comparison between Domestic Developed and Imported Electrolyzers

Abstract

This study aims to present a quantitative cost analysis of hydrogen utilizing a developed alkaline electrolyzer, a similar-capacity imported alkaline electrolyzer, and a similar-capacity PEM electrolyzer.The research also finds the key parameters that can reduce or increase the production cost. One of the subjected electrolyzers is a locally developed Alkaline Electrolyzer (AE); the other two are similar-capacity imported AE and Polymer Electrolytic Membrane (PEM) electrolyzers. The study uses the Hybrid Optimization of Multiple Energy Resources (HOMER) software for estimating the Levelized Cost of Electricity (LCOE) and the Life Cycle Cost (LCC) method for hydrogen production cost estimation. Results show that the imported electrolyzers have higher production costs due to import duty, fees, and taxes. The estimated cost is 88.4% (AE) and 110.3% (PEM), higher than the locally developed electrolyzer. The economic changes also significantly impact production costs. Government policies can reduce the cost by rescheduling the hydrogen components taxes.