KEY DH Technologies Inc. subsidiary Hydrogen Optimized has completed a demonstration of the world’s highest-current water electrolyzer since the 1980s.

The operation of a 50,000 A RuggedCell unipolar electrolyzer in Ontario Province, Canada, represents a breakthrough in large-scale green hydrogen production technology and a direct pathway toward the commercialization of single electrolysis modules rated up to 100 MW.

Said Hydrogen Optimized president and CEO Andrew T. B. Stuart, “We will now focus on optimizing the RuggedCell design as we advance toward the development of a market-ready product. We will also move toward the scale-up of our technology — a doubling of the RuggedCell current rating to 100,000 amperes. This will enable single electrolyzer modules up to 200 MW.”

Aurora Energy Research, Europe’s leading dedicated power analytics provider, projects that the global installed base of water electrolyzers will grow one-thousand-fold from 0.2 GW today to more than 200 GW by 2040. The firm also projects that “typical” electrolyzer project sizes will grow to 100 MW to 500 MW by 2025 and to 1 GW by 2030. Looking ahead, Hydrogen Optimized believes that its high-current unipolar approach could be a category-leading solution for plants at the scale forecasted by Aurora.