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Hydrogen, the energy middleman

misconception hydrogen fuel

Hydrogen, the energy middleman – Dr. Julio C. Garcia-Navarro.

Like many of you have probably noticed, there has been recently a massive surge in information, webinars, and other online content related to hydrogen. I think that’s great; people are finally talking about hydrogen as the fuel of the present instead of the fuel of the future (and in the future it will remain). In this sea of information, I understand that it is exceptionally difficult to navigate all the numbers unless you are a hydrogen insider such as myself.

On April 20th, the German publication Der Tagesspiegel organized an Energy Debate in Berlin, where more than 1000 participants joined online to watch high-ranking German politicians (including the German Environment Minister) talk about the energy future in Germany. The participants were surveyed and the results of the survey were published on the website in both German and English (the info can be found here: Link.

One of the questions from the survey that left me scratching my head was “what’s your opinion about the energy carriers of the future?“. 38% of the participants answered, “new technologies like hydrogen”, 32% answered, “renewable energy carriers like wind and sun”, and 23% said that “a mixture of them all” (including fossils and CCS) will be the energy carriers of the future.

Hydrogen is not an independent energy carrier because it cannot be extracted from the ground. Hydrogen needs to be produced by other forms of energy

Julio C. Garcia-Navarro

Hydrogen, the energy middleman

Hydrogen is basically a mobile energy storage system that requires an energy input to store energy, like any other energy storage systems; this is basically how energy storage works.

Hydrogen is basically a middleman of energy. Even if the final use of energy is split between hydrogen and electricity, hydrogen needs to have been produced either by electricity (via electrolysis) or by fossil/biofuels (via coal gasification, SMR, pyrolysis, etc.).

READ the latest news shaping the hydrogen market at Hydrogen Central

Reading other content online about hydrogen, I am thinking that it is not clear to people that, for a low-carbon hydrogen economy to exist, one of the two following situations need to happen:

  1. [The green hydrogen path aka zero-emission H2] Renewable energy sources would have to be installed alongside the electrolyzers. The normal estimation is that for each GW of electrolysis capacity (that would produce 0.7 GW in hydrogen), there needs to be between 2 GW (of solar panels) and 4 GW (of wind power) installed alongside the electrolyzers. This pathway guarantees that the hydrogen remains carbon-free while maintaining the current decarbonization levels of the electricity grid. This H2 would produce 0% carbon emissions
  2. [The blue hydrogen path aka low emission H2] The use of other fuels that contain hydrogen (methane, coal) would have to be increased manyfold, and the widespread use of CCS technologies (that have not reached cost maturity) would have to be implemented. Since there always be a bit of slippage of carbon in a CCS capture system, the produced hydrogen would not be 100% carbon-free. Estimates put the carbon footprint of blue H2 at 25 g CO2/kWh (compare it with 200 g CO2/kWh or natural gas).

In any case, either one of the aforementioned situations would require additional investments:

  • Number 1) would require 2-4 GW the installed capacity of renewables per GW of electrolysis, meaning that the short-term investment of a green hydrogen economy would be significantly larger than when only considering electrolyzers as the main capital investment needed
  • Number 2) would require CCS to be installed in existing and future blue H2 production installations. It does not fully remove the carbon footprint of the energy carriers, but it does soften the blow dealt by decarbonization to the economy.

It is possible that electrification of more sectors (like mobility) would be a cost-effective alternative to hydrogen. Direct electrification would mean that renewable energy can be directly coupled to the grid so there is no need for an energy middleman like H2. The issue of direct electrification shifts the investment burden towards the electricity grid expansion and optimization. As we know, the electricity grid as we know it dates from a time when renewables were not as predominant as they are today, so the grid of today cannot accommodate large amounts of intermittent and renewable electricity. A heavy investment in the electricity grid would need to be made to accommodate increasing installed capacities of renewable energies.

I think that direct investments in the electricity grid can coexist with hydrogen as the energy middleman because there are sectors where decarbonization is not possible i.e., in industries that require high temperature heat (like steel production) and in heavy duty mobility. In any case, I am not advocating specifically for either color of hydrogen; I just want to raise awareness that the survey should not show that H2 is competing against renewables, but rather that H2 needs renewables, so the question about the future energy carrier becomes H2 + renewables vs fossil fuels.

About the author
Dr. Julio C. Garcia-Navarro is a Hydrogen Project Coordinator at New Energy Coalition. He has worked in the hydrogen industry for nearly a decade, on topics such as hydrogen electrolysis, compression, and transportation. Besides hydrogen, he is passionate about Renewable Energy Systems and the Internet of Things.

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