MODELING AND VALIDATION OF A PROTON EXCHANGE MEMBRANE (PEM) ELECTROLYSIS CELL: PARAMETER FITTING AND EXPERIMENTAL DATA COMPARISON

The increasing global energy demand, driven by rapid population growth, has led to an overreliance on fossil fuels, significantly contributing to climate change. To mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, water electrolysis is emerging as a key technology for accelerating energy system decarbonisation. When powered by Renewable Energy Sources (RESs), electrolysis produces”green hydrogen,” a versatile energy carrier that also serves as a medium- to long-term energy storage solution, enhancing grid stability. Among electrolysis technologies, Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) electrolysis stands out as the most commercially widespread due to its compact design, high-pressure operation, and broad power density range (10–100% of nominal power), making it well-suited for integration with RESs. This study presents a semi-empirical numerical model developed for a PEM electrolysis cell, designed as a predictive tool for assessing system performance. The model’s reliability has been validated against experimental data from the scientific literature. Additionally, a fitting process was applied to the reference exchange current density to improve the model’s alignment with various datasets. The results demonstrate that incorporating fitted values for the reference exchange current density significantly enhances the model’s accuracy, reducing the maximum percentage error from 12% to 7% and the maximum Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) from 0.056 V to 0.022 V.