Hydrogen gets the green light
Hydrogen is often described as a clean, flexible energy carrier for the future. But how can it fulfill that promise? In the first article of our two-part series, we discussed hydrogen basics, sourcing, and production. In part two, we’ll focus on hydrogen use cases in various industries and how hydrogen can make the grid more stable.
Due to its high versatility, hydrogen has the potential to become one of the key drivers of decarbonization, but there has to be a strategic approach to how and when it can be used. As hydrogen is expensive to transport and store, deplyoment seems sensible only when no other viable decarbonization alternatives exist for sectors like industry, building, transportation, and power.
A jack of all trades
Since hydrogen reacts with most elements, it is used in many industries for the production of materials. Electronic components, rocket fuel, ammonia for fertilizers, textile fibers, glass for flat screens, mechanical parts in metallurgy - it’s a long list, which shows that there is a huge demand for hydrogen in industrial processes, especially in heavy industry. Chemicals, refining, and iron and steel are the primary markets, and switching to low-carbon hydrogen presents the challenge that hydrogen production currently isn't advanced or sustainable enough.
Whether it’s by land, sea, or air, heavy transportation is responsible for a large amount of carbon emissions. Hydrogen-based synthetic fuels in air and sea transport are unlikely to become widely used in this decade, but in the long run, they could replace gas or diesel in aviation and ocean shipping. Advanced biofuels, such as fuels from algae or waste, might compete with synthetic fuels in the future, but their commercial development is still in its infancy. Even though low-carbon hydrogen is still expensive and hydrogen fueling stations are scarce, it has enormous potential in road transport when combined with fuel cells in zero-emission electric vehicles. A fuel cell is two to three times more efficient than a conventional internal combustion engine running on gas.
Hydrogen-based technologies might play a key role in powering buildings, too. To ensure that buildings with low heating demand increases, we need to determine the ideal technology for heating (and cooling) while taking the upgrade costs into account. A hydrogen boiler solution is a smart choice since it can reuse existing infrastructure - the importance of such solutions in the residential sector is likely to increase in the coming years. The image below shows how hydrogen is used globally.
Source: IRENA based on FCH JU (2016), Copyright Hinicio 2016
Hydrogen and flexibility
The versatility of hydrogen offers various options for balancing intermittent renewables, such as hydrogen boilers, hydrogen fuel cells, heat pumps, and renewable electrolysis hydrogen. The latter is commonly referred to as power-to-gas (P2G) and involves converting surplus renewable energy into hydrogen gas through electrolysis. The gas can then be injected into the grid and reduce emissions by replacing natural gas, resulting in a greener gas mix. By converting hydrogen to energy carriers that are easy to store, P2G can make a significant contribution to long-term energy storage.
System flexibility is further boosted through sector coupling, which refers to the close integration of large energy consumers with power production. While the energy transition initially emphasized the use of renewables to decarbonize electricity, sector coupling supports the decarbonization of additional sectors through electrification and shifts their primary energy source to renewables. When coupled to a power grid, hydrogen technology becomes a component of the system and adds flexibility to it. Just like electric vehicles or heat pumps, electrolyzers for hydrogen production can be integrated into the grid. Also, coupling the power and hydrogen sectors supports the integration of variable renewable energy in the former, which leads to cost reductions for the system at large. The diagram below shows how hydrogen fits into sector coupling.
Source: Siemens
Since it can be generated from renewable power and then used directly for heating, transport, industry, or generating power at a later time, hydrogen holds enormous potential. However, it's essential to reduce the costs of related technologies and of hydrogen’s derivative synthetic fuels. Additionally, markets with demand for such fuels need to develop at scale.
The momentum hydrogen has both in politics and business keeps growing, and the industry could take advantage of it: If technologies are scaled up and costs lowered, hydrogen can become an important part of a clean and secure energy future. In fact, it's already an integral part of the European Union’s plan to achieve climate neutrality by 2050. For reference, the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Gas (ENTSOG) set up a visualization platform showing all renewable and low-carbon hydrogen projects in Europe. A global reference map can be found here.
Long-term storage could be a viable solution for shifting excess renewable generation to a later, more suitable point in time. With the ability to decide when and how much hydrogen should be produced (demand-side flexibility), it could be an interesting combined use case for flexibility optimization in short-term power markets. If you're interested in other forms of storage and decarbonization, check BESS and thermal storage.
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