H2Giga is one of the BMBF's three hydrogen flagship projects, in which around 120 institutions from industry and science - including the TU Bergakademie Freiberg - are working on the production of green hydrogen on an industrial scale.

Green hydrogen can be used to convert renewable electrical energy into chemical energy and thus make it storable. The storage of electrical energy, in turn, is an essential prerequisite for Germany's energy industry to be able to switch to renewable sources.

Competitive production of green hydrogen on a gigawatt scale

The production of hydrogen from water and electricity, or "electrolysis", is a process that has been known for a long time and has now reached considerable technical maturity. However, this technology is not yet available on a large scale that is relevant for the entire energy system. Electrolysers are currently still largely built by hand, with correspondingly high costs and low production capacity. This is where the lead project H₂Giga comes in by preparing and advancing the industrialisation of water electrolysis for the production of green hydrogen. The H₂Giga partners are developing manufacturing technologies, automation, digitalisation and methods for quality control and recycling for the production of electrolysers, so that production, which is still predominantly carried out with a low level of automation, can be converted to industrial series production for the corresponding market ramp-up.

The new H₂Giga project

With a kick-off meeting on 8 March 2022, the H₂Giga project "HTEL-Module - Ready for Gigawatt" began joint work on the development of a new generation of high-temperature electrolysis modules. In addition to the TU Bergakademie Freiberg - represented by the Institute of Mechanics and Fluid Dynamics (IMFD) - the research and development network consists of the Firma Sunfire GmbH (network coordinator), the DECHEMA Research Institute (DFI), the DBI Gas -und Umwelttechnik GmbH (DBI) and other industrial partners. The project focuses on the scale-up of HT electrolysers, i.e. the realisation of large-scale modules, as a contribution to the overarching goal of H₂Giga- to promote the series production of high-performance, cost-effective electrolysers in Germany. In particular, the IMFD contributes its expertise in structural-mechanical simulations and experimentally validated material modelling, and thus supports the preliminary and hotbox development of the HTEL modules, taking into account realistic thermo-chemo-mechanical operating conditions. Important tasks relate to the evaluation and prediction of the reliability and service life of the electrolysers and their components.

To this end, three scientists at the IMFD, under the leadership of Prof Björn Kiefer and Dr Martin Abendroth, will carry out experimental, theoretical and numerical work during the funding period until June 2025 and thus help to identify suitable materials and design concepts for the new generation of HTEL modules. The IMFD sub-project, funded with around 1.7 million euros, will also be integrated into the "Zentrum für effiziente Hochtemperatur-Stoffwandlung (ZeHS)" at TU Bergakademie Freiberg, where excellent framework conditions are in place for carrying out the sub-project.

Further information can be found at: www.wasserstoff-leitprojekte.de

• V. Diddige, S. Roth, and B. Kiefer, Phase-field modeling of hydrogen-promoted fracture: Natural incorporation of hydrostatic stress dependencies via a chemical potential-based variational formulation, Computer Methods in Applied Mechanics and Engineering (2025), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cma.2025.118143
• R. W. Schirmer, S. Roth, M. Abendroth, B. Kiefer, An advanced creep law for large stress and temperature ranges, derived from the Larson-Miller master curve concept, In: International Journal of Pressure Vessels and Piping (2025), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpvp.2025.105585
• V. Diddige, A. Seupel, S. Roth, and B. Kiefer, A phase-field model for hydrogen-promoted fracture based on a mixed rate-type variational setting, Proceedings in Applied Mathematics and Mechanics (2024), https://doi.org/10.1002/pamm.202300237