Tech Talks - Hydrogen Compression System - Hydrogen Refueling Explained - Hyfindr Heller

Tech Talks - Hydrogen Compression System - Hydrogen Refueling Explained - Hyfindr Heller

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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

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