Exclusive interview: H2O Global News editor, Siôn Geschwindt, spoke with Breakthrough Energy Catalyst Director of Project Development, Bobby Hollis, about green hydrogen, it’s role in the energy transition and how to accelerate investment and growth in the sector.
The move away from fossil fuels to renewable energies is the biggest global energy transition since the industrial revolution.
And as the cost of renewables plummets a net-zero global economy is no longer a pie in the sky.
However, despite the progress, there are still many hurdles to overcome. One of the greatest is ensuring that renewable technologies can provide a stable, resilient energy system capable of keeping up with rising demand and facilitating the decarbonisation of ‘hard-to-clean’ sectors such as transport.
To date, the vast majority of investment has been funnelled to wind and solar, but the consensus view is that diversifying the energy mix is central to building a sector fit for the future.
One clean technology that has received significant attention is green hydrogen.
What is green hydrogen?
Green hydrogen is produced from water through a chemical process known as electrolysis – which uses an electrical current to separate hydrogen from oxygen in water.
The end product of this process is oxygen and a non-toxic colourless gas: hydrogen.
Hydrogen fuel is only ‘green’ if the electricity used to power the process is obtained from renewable sources.
While green hydrogen fuel doesn’t emit any CO2 during production or combustion – the same can’t be said for other varieties of the gas.
Grey, blue or green?
Grey hydrogen is produced by splitting natural gas into hydrogen and CO2, which gets released into the atmosphere. Fossil fuels also power the electrolysis, making grey hydrogen the least renewable form of hydrogen.
Grey hydrogen accounts for 95-99% of the world’s hydrogen demand today. It is relatively inexpensive and commonly used in the chemical industry to make fertilizer and for refining oil.
Blue hydrogen is produced in a similar way but integrates carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology to reduce overall emissions. However, one recent study by Robert Howarth from Cornell University and Mark Jacobson from Stanford University showed that blue hydrogen is only around 10% cleaner than its grey cousin.
The upshot? Green hydrogen is the only zero-emissions hydrogen fuel currently in production.
“We’re all seeing the impacts of climate change and to get to net-zero by 2050 we must prioritise green hydrogen over grey and blue,” said Breakthrough Energy Catalyst Director of Project Development Bobby Hollis. “Green hydrogen is a proven solution and has an immediate and tangible role to play in decarbonising the energy sector.”
Net-zero solution
Green hydrogen is a dense, zero-emissions fuel with a lot of potential.
Perhaps one of the most obvious is replacing its fossil equivalent. According to the International Energy Agency, production of hydrogen emits around 830 million tonnes of carbon dioxide per year. The good news is that green hydrogen can replace ‘dirty’ hydrogen without major infrastructure adjustments.
The green fuel can also dilute natural gas supplies that heat our homes, but only to a threshold of about 20%.
The greatest potential lies in energy storage and in powering transportation.
“Cars and public transportation can ‘fuel-switch’ relatively easily to green hydrogen,” said Hollis. “Hydrogen is also easy to store under pressure which acts as a battery – electrolysers can be powered by renewables and then when the sun isn’t shining or the wind isn’t blowing, that green hydrogen can be used to assist the power grid.”
Hydrogen fuel cell buses produce no tail-pipe emissions
But if this alternative energy source has so many benefits, why is only 0.1% of hydrogen green?
It is too expensive.
The IEA puts the current cost of green hydrogen at $3-8/kg, compared to $0.50-1.70/kg for unabated grey hydrogen.
The reasons are twofold. Firstly, energy from renewable sources has historically been more expensive to generate, which in turn makes hydrogen more expensive to obtain. Secondly, a lack of investment and willing finance has kept prices high.
The result? Only 200MW of electrolysers are currently deployed worldwide. That’s less than 1% of global offshore wind capacity.
But while making green hydrogen a central component of the global energy mix might seem like a pipedream at this point, things are changing – and fast.
Spurring investment
“The renewable energies used to power green hydrogen production are now market competitive which is a real game changer,” said Hollis. “However, green hydrogen front runners are still facing the same hurdle that wind and solar did a decade previously – access to finance.”
Hollis is director of project development at Breakthrough Energy’s Catalyst program. Catalyst works with philanthropists, governments, and companies, leveraging finance to support the growth of clean technologies.
“Wind and solar are now cost-competitive with fossil fuels, but it took a long time to get there,” said Hollis. “We can’t wait decades for the next generation of clean technologies to become market competitive, which means we need to accelerate the uptake of solutions like green hydrogen at an unprecedented rate.”
The program looks at the entire value chain with the ultimate goal of spurring investment and driving down costs. Catalyst has made key partnerships, including with the European Commision and business magnate Bill Gates, to cement green hydrogen in the global clean energy mix before the end of the decade.
Momentum builds for green hydrogen
Programs like Catalyst stand at a watershed moment in the green hydrogen sector.
According to Bloomberg New Energy Finance, as of July 2021, 43 countries have released or are about to release hydrogen roadmaps.
The European Union (EU) is leading the charge, with a target to install 40GW of electrolysers by 2030, making up 13-14% of its total energy mix by 2050.
Green hydrogen plant under construction in the Netherlands (Credit: Nouryon)
The United States have also ringfenced €6.7bn for hydrogen energy as part of their $1trn infrastructure plan.
In Asia, China’s hydrogen industry body, which is supported and supervised by the government, is calling on Beijing to install a whopping 100GW of green hydrogen capacity by 2030.
While these commitments signal a global policy shift, there is still a lot of work to be done.
To get the ball rolling, this year the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) and the World Economic Forum set out 38 ‘enabling measures’ that will help cut the cost of green hydrogen in Europe and underpin a trustworthy international market.
These include support mechanisms, a new market design, quotas for industry, carbon border adjustment taxes, carbon intensity definitions, electrolyser manufacturing capacity targets, workforce training, and R&D support.
The consensus view is that governments will need to subsidise green hydrogen in the short to medium term to make it affordable and create a viable and sustainable market for the gas — in a similar way to how feed-in tariffs and national tenders have drastically cut the cost of wind and solar power over the past 20 years.
The European Commission believes that the scale-up of green hydrogen will require a total investment of €470bn (c.£401bn) over the next 30 years.
Do you have an article or video that you would like to share? Submit your article here or keep up with the latest news from the water industry and wastewater industry by subscribing to our weekly newsletter.
