But this is only likely to be worthwhile in places where natural-gas prices are relatively high, such as in Europe. But the biggest advantage of using the Hydro Harvester is that water produced is so pure, it can be directly fed into the electrolyser. To find out more, I chatted to Ben Gallagher, our lead analyst on emerging technologies. We, and third parties, use cookies and other electronic tools to enhance your experience, analyze site usage, and deliver advertisements tailored to your interests. But producing those ultra-high temperatures requires burning something, usually coal, oil or natural gas. “By removing the need for treatment, we can dramatically reduce hydrogen production cost.”. Cost. And the reversible nature of electrolysis means that green hydrogen could act as a kind of battery: excess electricity generated by renewables sources could be converted into hydrogen, stored and used in a fuel cell to produce electricity when it’s needed. The idea is that green hydrogen piggybacks on the rapid roll-out of renewables in the coming decades. Few energy-related topics are getting as much attention at the moment as green hydrogen. When it burns, it only leaves water vapor instead of the greenhouse gases that come from fossil fuels. A hydrogen economy in the U.S. could generate an estimated $140 billion per year in revenue and support 700,000 jobs by 2030, according to a recent McKinsey study published by the Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Energy Association.
Europe's biggest natural-gas infrastructure firm recently launched a new hydrogen business. It’s called grey hydrogen if it comes from gas, while the hydrogen produced from coal is called black. Thank you. © 2020 Greentech Media or its affiliated companies. In order to opt-out, please click on the link(s) below. Since it’s lighter than any other element, airships used it to keep aloft in the last century, albeit not without incidents such as the Hindenburg disaster in 1937. What is the attraction of hydrogen? And its value as a fuel is proven. The German utility Uniper SE is doing just that with BP Plc, linking a wind farm to electrolizers that could generate 100 megawatts of energy, the equivalent of a small power plant. The economics only work on what are unrealistic assumptions today – high load factors (more than 50%) and low electricity prices (below US$30/MWh). Around 97% of Norwegian electricity production comes from hydropower and with 15 TWh of excess capacity currently available, new ways of utilising this green power are needed. It also powers rocket engines that need to work where there’s no oxygen. But rising membership of the Hydrogen Council, formed in 2017, reveals the widespread interest among big players across multiple sectors including automakers (among them BMW, GM and Honda), power and gas utilities (Engie and EDF), engineering (Bosch, Alstom), finance, and oil and gas (Aramco, Shell, BP, Total and Equinor). During the day, solar energy is used to produce hot, humid air – the hotter the air, the more water it holds – which is then cooled using ambient air as a heat sink to extract water. Since energy would be lost in this conversion, however, it would likely only be worth doing where the value of the resulting product is relatively high. The gas is colour-coded according to the way it is produced, says the EBRD’s Christian Carraretto. Portugal plans a new solar-powered hydrogen plant which will produce hydrogen by electrolysis by 2023. Powering fuel-cell vehicles is one of the most often-cited applications for green hydrogen. This article was written by William Wilkes, Vanessa Dezem and Anna Shiryaevskaya.

Hy2gen AG develops and operates globally production sites, to secure a decentralized supply of carbon free hydrogen. And while the team behind the Hydro Harvester, led by Professor Behdad Moghtaderi, primarily developed it to provide access to water for drought-stricken developing nations, they have since put it to use in a novel approach to green hydrogen production. This hydrogen is carbon-intensive, it’s not a green fuel. “In the next 10 years, there’s probably more attractive uses for green hydrogen than putting it into cars,” said Colin McKerracher, head of advanced transport at the analyst firm Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

This is not a fairy story. During the day, solar energy is used to produce hot, humid air – the hotter the air, the more water it holds – which is then cooled using ambient air as a heat sink to extract water. Wood Mackenzie, a Verisk Analytics business, is a trusted source of commercial intelligence for the world's natural resources sector. Hydrogen is one of the technology pillars on which hopes to abate climate change rest.

The other issue is that making huge amounts of green hydrogen may strain electricity grids that are already facing a big challenge in preparing for a broad societal shift to powering more things with electricity rather than fossil fuels, most notably electric cars. Efforts to make the technology a commercial reality are furthest advanced in Europe, where policy makers are quickly tightening the screws on industry to scale back pollution. Green hydrogen, in contrast, could almost eliminate emissions by using renewable energy — increasingly abundant and often generated at less-than-ideal times — to power the electrolysis of water. The EU, and others, want to get there by 2050, some even sooner. Green hydrogen, in contrast, could almost eliminate emissions by using renewable energy — increasingly abundant and often generated at less-than-ideal times — … Siemens Energy Launches its First Megawatt Green Hydrogen Production Project in China. Most of the hydrogen produced today is not green. We empower clients to make better, Wood Mackenzie, a Verisk Analytics business, is a trusted source of commercial intelligence for the world's natural resources sector. These are costs that green hydrogen can’t even get close to currently. First, cost reduction – we expect capital expenditure to fall by one-third by 2030, especially as the manufacturing process for electrolyzers moves to automation, unit feedstock costs reduce by 5% and electrolyzer efficiency improves by 8%. The green methane technology will be demonstrated at a gas hub near Roma in Queensland where it will produce approximately 620kg of hydrogen per year, converting it into 74 gigajoules of methane that can then be injected into the existing network of natural gas pipelines across the East Coast gas grid. We’re hoping to commence testing by the end of the year,” he said. But it remains to be seen whether fuel-cell vehicles can gain traction as automotive markets flip from internal combustion engines to increasingly cost-competitive battery-powered cars. As well as the sectors hydrogen already sells into, green hydrogen’s zero-carbon credentials open a wide range of new ones. The project was late last year awarded $330,000 from the NSW Physical Sciences Fund to prepare a prototype for commercial trial, and aims to deliver a technology that can be used at a residential, community, or industrial-scale to produce water at less than 5c per litre. This allows for both easy transport – via existing natural gas pipelines – and versatility; at the point of use, the green methane can be converted back to hydrogen or used as-is as a renewable form of natural gas. Today, hydrogen made from fossil fuels costs between $1-$1.8/kg. As for which ones might take off first, “we and others around the world have spent a lot of time thinking about and performing analysis to answer this very question,” said Keith Wipke of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s fuel cell and hydrogen technologies program.

“Sea water, wastewater or even tap water require multiple treatment steps to reach the level of purity required in electrolysis,” said Professor Moghtaderi. Hydrogen flames hot and clean.
How could green hydrogen become viable? By submitting my information, I agree to the privacy policy and to learn more about products and services from Bloomberg. Another great use can be seasonal storage of electricity, allowing remote communities to store large amounts of energy for months. Realistically, it’ll be another decade before hydrogen starts to make a meaningful contribution to decarbonization. In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s climate cabinet said in September green hydrogen would play a central role in “rebuilding” Germany’s industrial base as it moves to zero emissions by 2050. Based on research from NREL, McKinsey and others, here are five major opportunities for the fuel, as well as some of the attendant challenges. That shows the interest the technology is attracting in China, Japan, the US, Europe and Australia, but so far, it’s only scratching the surface.