This seems like a really inefficient way to make/store energy. It would only be worth doing if you specifically needed hydrogen for an application, but that isn’t the use case the article lays out:

This significantly exceeds the estimated baseline demand for basic household uses such as cooking or heating, which is approximately 120 liters per day.

Cooking and heating can be done simply with the raw electricity coming off the panels without any expense of hydrogen conversion equipment. The article also doesn’t call out that to produce hydrogen with an electrolyzer, you need to consume water too. The linked paper cites energy storage via hydrogen as a benefit, but again with conversion overhead, batteries connected to those panels would be a better solution.

So unless you need the chemistry of hydrogen for a specific process, this is a subpar solution compared to purely electrical solutions.

That’s liters of hydrogen, not liters of water. Water consumption is very small. The system generates more than enough hydrogen for daily use, so it is an effective use of abandoned solar panels.

That’s liters of hydrogen not liters of water.

Yep, I understand that. I’m not referring to the amount of water consumed, but its introducing yet another unneeded complexity for the system. I didn’t even bring up the fact that those electrolyzer catalysts are likely a consumable part that need to be replaced at regular intervals.

The system generates more than enough hydrogen for daily use, so it is an effective use of abandoned solar panels.

Why not simply use the “abandoned solar panels” to generate electricity for immediate use or storage in a battery? That is a far FAR less complex system without all of the conversion losses this hydrogen solution introduces.

I didn’t even bring up the fact that those electrolyzer catalysts are likely a consumable part that need to be replaced at regular intervals.

PEM electrolyzers are not consumable parts and can last for decades.

Why not simply use the “abandoned solar panels” to generate electricity for immediate use or storage in a battery?

The point is that you avoid having to buy the electronic equipment for that. It says in the article:

Unlike conventional systems, which rely on power electronics such as inverters or maximum power point trackers, the approach uses internal reconfiguration of the PV module to match its current-voltage curve to the electrolyzer’s requirements. This removes the need for additional components and reduces system complexity, the scientists explained.

The point is that you avoid having to buy the electronic equipment for that. It says in the article:

So you’re avoiding buying an inverter, but you have to buy a PEM electrolyzer. But you also have to account for storage with either giant multi cubic meter low pressure hydrogen bags/tanks (how safe is that with the high combustion risk?), or you have to buy a compressor then multiple pressure vessels to store the hydrogen, but then you’re having to come of with another source of electricity to run the compressor pump.

It is possible that it will be the cheaper of the two options. A household-sized system is not an industrial system, and will be using much smaller and fewer components. You may even forgo the hydrogen tanks and compressor altogether, and use something like a metal hydride storage system instead.

It is possible that it will be the cheaper of the two options.

Okay here’s a self contained unit with 1KWh of batteries that can accept 500W of the “abandoned solar panels” input for use or charging the batteries.

Here’s an induction hotplate that can use the unit above’s electricity for cooking food at full blast for just under an hour on just stored electricity.

With this solution the only input is sunlight. There are no consumables. This unit is rated for 4000 cycles and is designed for a 10 year lifespan.

So your budget to beat a regular PV solution is $507 USD.

With that you need to provide a hydrogen solution that can:

• take the solar panel input
• store 1KWh of energy
• provide a cooking surface to cook food at high temperatures for about an hour

I’m interested to see what hydrogen solutions exist to do this for less money.