In 2023, a leading centre for advanced propulsion research and innovation, IAAPS, a subsidiary of the University of Bath, opened its purpose-built facility for the development of hydrogen propulsion fuel systems. The facility forms part of a regional renewable transport energy research network with over thirty partners aiming to develop green energy use in the western region of Great Britain.

IAAPS and its various partners offer an important link in the hydrogen (H2) research sector, with its hydrogen facility funded by Research England’s Research Partnership Investment Fund, part of its net zero funding programme. The green hydrogen facility is powered by solar panels (Photovoltaics – PV) placed on the roof of the IAAPS building, which enables the operation of a 400-kW propulsion research facility.

The delivery and installation of a new polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) electrolyser and a more than 100 cubic metre storage tank reduced IAAPS’s reliance on grey hydrogen and has already helped generate an important breakthrough. In February 2024, IAAPS announced that it had successfully run an internal combustion engine on hydrogen generated by its H2 power plant for the first time. The electrolyser, supplied by IMI VIVO, split water into hydrogen and oxygen, with the hydrogen itself harnessed for combustion in the engine.

IMI’s technology and expert support have proven central to this breakthrough, with IAAPS viewing the hydrogen facility and its PEM electrolyser as a significant investment in the green hydrogen economy. We recently spoke with members of the IAAPS engineering team to discuss its work and their recent collaboration with the IMI VIVO team.

Can you tell us a little about IAAPS and the types of projects you have worked on that have led you to need an electrolyser?

IAAPS is an independent research and innovation centre working across academia and industry on cutting-edge propulsion projects. Our ethos is founded on delivering research as a service to industry, and we have state-of-the-art facilities to test all kinds of propulsion systems across the automotive, aerospace, marine and off-highway sectors. As each of those sectors is taking an increasing interest in hydrogen technologies, we’re installing a hydrogen production capability to ensure that IAAPS can meet the experimental ambitions of our customers in those sectors. Also, we wish to ensure that we remain at the forefront of those technologies, be they a hydrogen internal combustion engine, fuel cells or anything in between, down to subsystems and individual components.

The past 18 months have seen a significant increase in demand for hydrogen capabilities at our facility, and it’s a big area of expansion for our business, which has led us to invest heavily in hydrogen for research and innovation.

An electrolyser gives us a steady supply of hydrogen for the projects we need to support without constantly replacing high-pressure pallets or tube trailers and dealing with the additional costs, complications, and inherent inefficiency of compressing the gas for transport.

The other piece of the puzzle for IAAPS is environmental impact. We produce green hydrogen on-site by installing the electrolyser alongside a new array of solar panels. Propulsion research and net zero are heavily intertwined, and it’s essential to our partners and to us that our development process and the end product are as clean as possible. Producing our own green hydrogen on-site gives us a unique capability nationally, and we’re keen to partner with industry and academia on projects which take advantage of our facilities.

What made you decide to work with IMI?

We knew we wanted to produce our own hydrogen. IMI was able to work with the constraints we had on-site, understand our requirements and deliver a complete system at the correct scale for IAAPS’ research and innovation work.

What made you decide to choose the IMI VIVO electrolyser?

Handling hydrogen and preventing leaks is a challenge for everyone. Knowing that IMI has experience in critical industries and decades of experience handling fluids gave us confidence in the team’s ability to design equipment with the right level of integrity for our project. The safe handling of hydrogen is paramount for us at IAAPS. It’s essential that we work to very high standards of safety, just as we do with liquid fuels, batteries, and systems that transfer as much as a megawatt of power on site.

IMI sees itself as a partner in the adoption of green hydrogen. How did you find working with the team when configuring the technology? Do you feel that IMI listened to and understood your needs?

Nobody has all the answers when working on cutting-edge projects, so we must work collaboratively to achieve the desired outcome. With electrolyser technology still being relatively young and the needs of the hydrogen propulsion industry still very much emerging, it was always going to be a journey for IMI and us to work out our needs while configuring the technology. We found that the IMI team really understood the core technology and could help us understand the power, storage requirements and physical presence that suits IAAPS’ research facility.

Installing an electrolyser with storage is a big job. Did you feel confident in the hands of the IMI engineering team?

It has been a big job! Having the electrolyser arrive in a shipping container, already tested at the IMI facility in Sardinia, gave us confidence we could get the project up and running at IAAPS with minimal issues on our site. Working with IMI has been a collaborative process for us. We work with customers daily on research and innovation projects and are used to problem-solving together. With relatively young technologies like this 500-kW hydrogen electrolyser, that approach served us well. We found that the IMI VIVO team’s knowledge of the core technology was strong, which gave us the confidence that we could understand and fix any issues that emerged.

Is there anything important we should know from your experience with IMI and the IMI VIVO electrolyser installation process? Any suggested improvements?

I’m sure we’ll both continue to learn from each other as we produce green hydrogen here in our daily operations. Working with engineers rather than installation contractors meant there were a few more questions and unknowns along the way. Still, it gave us a unique opportunity to talk to a team that deeply understood the systems and how they worked. Hence, IAAPS engineers were able to get some additional education along the way. The IMI engineering team, having worked on the design and build beforehand, was very adept at troubleshooting the installation, too.

Would you recommend IMI VIVO to other organisations needing green hydrogen technology based on your customer service experience?

I would. The team’s readiness to answer our questions has been great and a good collaboration experience for us. The HMI control looks powerful in terms of how we drive production demand, adjust parameters, or get information back from the system in a way that is easy to understand.

If there is anything that could be done differently, either with the solution or working with IMI, what would it be?

Thanks to our successful collaboration with IMI, I think future installations will be smoother, with fewer unknowns, clearer interfaces and, of course, a team which now has more experience. The IMI VIVO team’s attitude has been great, and the customer interfaces are better understood.