Dynamic Multi-Physics Modeling and Coordinated Control of Large-Scale PEM Electrolyzers

This paper presents a dynamic multi-physics model for large-scale proton exchange membrane electrolyzers (PEMEs), explicitly capturing the interactions between the electrical, mass transfer, and thermal domains. The model accounts for the impact of PEME configuration-specifically, the number of series cells and parallel stacks-on the electrical dynamics. The developed framework is first used to evaluate the performance of a conventional decoupled control strategy, revealing its limitations under dynamic operation, particularly with respect to safety constraints such as hydrogen-to-oxygen ratios. To address these limitations, the paper proposes a coordinated control approach designed to improve safety and performance by explicitly accounting for the coupling between physical domains.