Technology Classification of Hydrogen Production by Water Electrolysis
From technology aspect, hydrogen production by water electrolysis is mainly devided into AWE technology, PEM technology, AEM technology, and SOE technology.
Among those three technology, AWE technology is the earliest industrialized water electrolysis technology with decades of application experience and is the most mature; hydrogen production by PEM water electrolysis technology has developed rapidly in recent years, hydrogen production by SOE water electrolysis technology is in the initial demonstration stage, and hydrogen production by AEM water electrolysis research has just started .
From a time scale, AWE technology is easy to deploy and apply quickly in solving the near-term consumption of renewable energy; but from a technical point of view, PEM water electrolysis technology has high current density, small size of electrolyzer, flexible operation, and is conducive to rapid change. It has a good match with wind power and photovoltaic (power generation has greater volatility and randomness). With the popularization and application of PEM electrolyzers, its cost is expected to drop rapidly, which must be the development trend in the next 5~10 years. The development of SOE and AEM water electrolysis depends on the breakthrough of related material technologies