Last month the IEA
released its annual
World Energy Outlook
Special Report:
‘Sustainable Recovery.’
Hydrogen is one of
six key sectors
that governments
should focus on for
economic recovery.
‘ ... boost innovation
in crucial technology areas
including hydrogen, batteries,
CCUS, and small modular
nuclear reactors.’
IEA also called hydrogen
one of several integration
technologies that are
‘increasingly crucial’
for a low-carbon energy
transition in a recent
Tracking Energy
Integration 2020
report.
Low carbon hydrogen
projects are just beginning
to gain significant scale,
mainly in Northern Europe,
Global announcements
of plans and pilot projects
reached a high point in 2019.
But the current actual
worldwide production
of low-carbon hydrogen
is a tiny amount.
The transport
sector had been
the center of focus
for clean hydrogen,
with efforts to develop
fuel cell electric vehicles
(FCEVs) and hydrogen
refueling stations.
The IEA says the FCEV
market has continued
to expand, especially in
China, Japan and Korea.
And at the end of 2019,
there were 470 hydrogen
refueling stations
in operation worldwide,
an increase of
more than 20%
from 2018.
There has even been
production of two fuel cell
trains by Alstom in Germany,
with more coming next year.
There are new projects
are for large scale
deployment of electrolysers
of a hundred megawatts.
They could be used
for heavy industry,
chemical production,
heat for cities, and
energy storage.
IEA’s Hydrogen Projects
Database includes projects
in planning or construction
worldwide for the past
twenty years.
North European nexus ,
in Northern Europe,
renewable energy
will power electrolysers
to produce hydrogen
for industries in
northern industrial
centers.
Other projects focus
on power and heat
for urban districts.
A few notable projects:
Electrolysis:
Several planned projects
for hydrogen electrolysers
that would produce hydrogen
from decarbonized electricity.
German and French
projects are leaders.
In Germany, a power-to-gas
project in Emsland in the
Ruhr region has been called
‘Hybridge’ for its capacity
to couple electric and gas
networks.
In a partnership of
transmission system
operator Amprion
and gas net operator
Open Grid Europe (OGE),
electricity from renewable
energy will be converted,
by means of electrolysis,
into hydrogen and methane.
The companies will deploy
a 100 MW electrolyser,
with the resulting hydrogen
transported by an OGE
hydrogen pipeline
and the existing
gas pipeline network
throughout the Ruhr
and beyond.
The project is anticipated
to start operation in 2023.
In France, in the Les Hauts
de France region around Dunkirk,
one of the world’s most ambitious
power-to-gas projects will build
five 100 MW hydrogen electrolyser
production units over five years.
The project, a partnership of
France’s H2V Industry and
Norway’s HydrogenPro,
will introduce hydrogen
into the natural gas distribution
network in order to decarbonize
the natural gas used for heating
and cooking, and for transport.
In North America, a project
of the British Columbia-based
Renewable Hydrogen Canada
(RH2C) is backed by
a private sector utility
and investors.
The company is planning
to build a large electrolysis
plant in BC, to produce
renewable hydrogen
through water electrolysis
powered by local hydropower
and winds off the Rockies.
In the US, dedicated research
on electrolysis to produce
hydrogen from renewables
is centered in the Department
of Energy’s Office of Energy
Efficiency and Renewable Energy.
Industry:
Most of the current demand
for hydrogen is in oil refining,
the chemical sector
and steel manufacturing.
The opportunity to reduce
emissions in the industrial
sector is to displace
fossil fuel hydrogen
with electrolytic hydrogen
produced from
renewable sources
(‘green’ hydrogen)
or with CCUS
(‘blue’ hydrogen).
( CC = carbon capture )
This is feasible
in the production
of chemicals
such as ammonia
and methanol and
in oil refining.
Electrolytic hydrogen
is gaining momentum
in steelmaking, with a
large demonstration
plant under construction
in Sweden that is expected
to be operational by 2025.
According to the IEA,
six projects with a total
annual production of 350,000
metric tons of low-carbon
hydrogen were in operation
at the end of 2019.
More than 20 projects
to be launched in the 2020s
have been announced,
mainly in countries
around the North Sea.
The H-vision project,
with a 2030 target,
will establish blue hydrogen
infrastructure in the
Rotterdam harbor area
in the Netherlands.
It will consist of
hydrogen production
with CCUS in four
steam-reforming plants,
with a total capacity
of 15-20 metric tons
of hydrogen production
per hour.
They will produce hydrogen
for industrial plants
in the harbor,
with the resultant CO2
to be sequestered in
depleted gas fields
under the North Sea
or used in chemical
production.
Gas Grid:
According to the IEA,
several projects
around the world
are already injecting
hydrogen into existing
natural gas grids.
It is possible to blend
up to 20% hydrogen
into a gas grid
with minimal or
even no modifications
to the infrastructure
or end-user home
appliances.
First announced in 2016,
the H21 North of England
(H21 NoE) project, is a
collaboration of two
British gas distributors,
Northern Gas Networks and
Cadent, and Norway’s
Equinor (formerly Statoil).
They will use the existing
natural gas distribution
infrastructure
serving a region of
5 million inhabitants
including several large
cities for domestic
and industrial users/
The natural gas and
hydrogen mix
applications
include heat, power
and transport.
The goal is
‘deep decarbonization’
that could not be reached
with renewable electric
power alone.
To do so will require
carbon capture
and storage (CCS).
The captured CO2
will be transported
offshore to undersea
storage.
A specially built hydrogen
transmission pipeline
will link to the local
gas distribution networks.
A new transmission pipeline
is required because
injecting hydrogen
into gas transmission
pipelines is more difficult
(although Italy’s Snam
has already demonstrated
the feasibility of blending
hydrogen up to 10%
in gas transmission grids).
Project implementation
is between 2028 and 2034.
A more modest
project in France
is called GRHYD
(Gestion des Réseaux par
l’injection d’Hydrogène p
our Décarboner les énergiea),
( grid management through
the injection of hydrogen
for energy decarbonization) .
It was launched in 2018,
and is managed by the
energy services firm Engie
with local partners and
support of the French
government.
The current phase is
a power-to-gas project
deploying renewable energy
to blend up to 20% hydrogen
into the natural gas grid
for a district of Dunkirk.