The net zero imperative remains, and so should the will to integrate and leverage innovation to accelerate progress towards decarbonisation, sustainability and electrification.
Decarbonisation is a key component of the future energy map to enable a zero-carbon society to grow, while reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. This implies upgrading production sites to produce energy in a cleaner manner, while nurturing the development of a global and domestic hydrogen value chain. Hydrogen needs full recognition as a secondary energy source that acts as an energy carrier that is able to be stored and converted to serve a myriad of applications in industry, transport, power generation and building. Achieving a successful energy transition is possible with current technologies that leverage hydrogen and carbon capture value chains.
There have been efforts to deploy renewable energy-based projects, with the intention of including all emerging and developing economies in this new energy move. All countries that are willing to deploy renewable energy projects face similar financial, administrative and regulatory hurdles that need to be addressed by the different private, public and institutional stakeholders at international, national and regional levels.
These hurdles contribute to the delays in the number of renewable energy projects reaching the final investment decision (FID) stage. One of the factors behind the lagging scale-up of hydrogen production, transfer and distribution may be the lack of infrastructure serving the hydrogen value chain to allow it to become a ‘consumable product’. To overcome this situation, gas pipeline mitigation and hydrogen derivative products use existing infrastructure in ports and airports where possible. Under these conditions, it is difficult to assess whether this infrastructure is supporting or indeed slowing down the development of a hydrogen value chain.
The hydrogen industry needs to address the challenge of scaling up production to deliver the required quantities at the speed and price that end users can work with within their specific applications. One answer to this complex goal is to create integrated hydrogen value chains.
References
1‘CO2 Emissions in 2022’, International Energy Agency (IEA), https://www.iea.org/reports/co2-emissions-in-2022Written by Marie-Laure Gelin, Howden, a Chart Industries Company, the Netherlands.
This article was originally published in the Autumn 2023 issue of Global Hydrogen Review magazine. To read the full article, simply follow this link.