Rheinmetall displayed its recently developed and pilot-phase mobile green hydrogen production and storage device at the Africa Aerospace and Defense Expo.
Rheinmetall Denel Munition (RDM), a South African affiliate of the Rheinmetall Group, offers a complete and modular solution for supplying power to civil, industrial, expedition, and outdoor infrastructure.
The platform’s solar charge controllers and as many as 112 solar panels are housed in a shipping container, making it suitable for usage in undeveloped areas without the need for an additional power source.
Roughly a year has gone into the development of Rheinmetall’s pilot platform, which features a 4 kW fuel cell and an electrolyser that can produce 6 cm3 of hydrogen per hour.
Four regular shipping containers are all it takes for Rheinmetall’s containerized solution to provide electricity for 30 to 40 homes, the company reports.
Electrolysis technology, which splits water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen, is the basis for the idea. Solar panels generate the necessary electricity, thus there won’t be any emissions of greenhouse gases. The green hydrogen so generated is a gas and thus may be transported over the world and stored indefinitely.
The modular system’s parts can also be assembled into a stationary structure. With more substantial mobile setups, different operations like electrolyses and fuel cell power generation happen in their own containers. However, it is possible to fit both the hydrogen generating and fuel cell power generation modules into a single box.
Rheinmetall’s new green hydrogen platform provides options for entirely solar-powered energy production, extending the company’s portfolio as an energy partner.