Power-electronics -based power-hardware-in-loop (PHIL) simulator for water electrolyzer emulation with a nominal current of 405 A is developed to study the electrolyzer as part of a smart grid and to analyze the characteristics of various electrolyzer power supply electronics. A simplified model of a proton exchange membrane (PEM) electrolyzer is implemented into the PHIL simulator to describe the voltage and current characteristics of the electrolyzer stack. The model is verified comparing the current and the estimated hydrogen production of the PHIL simulator with the measured values of the commercial PEM electrolyzer following the measured solar photovoltaic (PV) system output power. (C) 2017 Hydrogen Energy Publications LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.