Hydrogen-Powered Economy
 

Countries worldwide are striving to unlock the potential of hydrogen as a new economic engine to tackle environmental concerns and enhance energy security.

Hydrogen plays a crucial role in clean energy transition. It provides ways to decarbonize a number of sectors such as transport, buildings, chemicals, refining, oil and gas industry and power generation. The element is largely used as a feedstock for industrial processing, in the production of ammonia for fertilizers, in refining, food, electronics, glass and metal industries.

The only by-products of hydrogen-powered systems are water and heat. Hydrogen is an ideal alternative to fossil fuels, which contributes immensely in greenhouse gas emissions driving global warming and climate change.

Besides, hydrogen technology helps increase flexibility in energy systems. It has the capability to serve as a long-term, large-scale clean energy storage medium that aids power generation from renewable sources.

The US, China and Europe are the biggest consumers of hydrogen in the refineries sector, accounting for approximately half of the overall (total) hydrogen consumption in refineries. European gas infrastructure companies have a plan for a continent-wide hydrogen network consisting of 23,000 kilometres of pipelines.

Asia-Pacific countries like Japan, South Korea and Australia, have come out with their long-term plans to be achieved over the next few decades in the use of hydrogen as an energy vector. India’s top energy companies has highlighted the urgency to move toward achieving decarbonization and enhancing energy security, thereby pushing toward embracing hydrogen as a clean-energy source.

Saudi Arabia’s $5bn Neom project to produce hydrogen using solar and wind power and a hydrogen distribution system in the kingdom’s industrial city of Yanbu are a  couple of large-scale projects in the region. Neom project will produce ammonia, which can be used as a fuel or fertilizer directly or broken down to hydrogen at its destination. 

The projects focus on “green” hydrogen made by breaking down water through electrolysis, using low-carbon, renewable electricity. Hydrogen from electrolysis currently costs about $2 per kilogram but has to fall to around $1 to make it viable. Adnoc and Masdar are launching a hydrogen-filling station while Dubai’s Expo 2020 site has a pilot solar hydrogen electrolyser.

Belgian-based conglomerate DEME Group plans to partner with Omani investors to support the development of a “world-leading” green hydrogen plant in Duqm with a proposed electrolyser capacity estimated between 250 and 500 megawatts. The project will rank among the largest of its kind in the Middle East.

Low cost hydrogen is an essential prerequisite for its growth in volumes in the future. The IEA analysis states that hydrogen production costs from renewable energy sources will fall 30% by 2030.An increasing support of countries in hydrogen technologies, growing hydrogen power research, development and demonstration by national governments, is set to provide momentum to hydrogen projects globally.

Editor