A small pilot, then a bigger plant

On 15 September 2026 a research team showed this coupling at industrial scale — first a 20 kW pilot, then a 250 kW plant. Nm³/h means cubic meters of gas per hour at standard conditions.

Locked rates from the paper:

Scale	Hydrogen	Fresh water	Notes
20 kW industrial pilot	3.8 Nm³/h	~1.2 kg/h	about 100 days stable
250 kW scaled system	48 Nm³/h	31.6 kg/h	about 40 days in the extra notes

• 14.4% improvement in system electrical efficiency versus making hydrogen from fresh water alone.
• The paper’s cost comparison favors the coupled process over desalinate-then-electrolyze as two separate steps.

The tempting mistake is to hear “250 kW” as a city already watered. This is an honest pilot-to-bigger step, not a finished municipal plant.

That is what lets you face the limits without talking the idea down.