Have you ever asked yourself ‘what is the role of #hydrogen in climate neutrality🐢?’ We’ve spent the last 11 months trying to piece together a picture from the wealth of research and analyses out there. Below highlights from our recent publication 12 Insights on Hydrogen?📺1/8
In European 1.5C scenarios, hydrogen and hydrogen-based products are most useful in industry🧑🏭and transport ✈️🚢, with a potentially large role in the power sector⚡️. Building heat🏘️sees minimal hydrogen. 2/7
More recent global scenarios confirm industrial importance but see less H2 in transport than EU studies due to lower FCEV 🚗expectations. Power sector is again a wildcard and depends on alternative LDES pathways or nuclear revival. Still minimal role for H2 in building heat. 3/7
The selected scenarios see H2 as cross-sectoral decarbonisation tool, but not all use cases are sensible 💡. We identify a number of ‘no-regret’ applications where future H2 demand will be inescapable on the journey to a decarbonised energy system. 4/7
Focus on no-regret applications is useful in anchoring early #H2 infrastructure ⚓️. We agree with @GasforClimate on two West European hydrogen superclusters by 2030, and additionally see further opportunities connecting Poland & the Baltics, as well as the Balkans. 5/7
Long duration storage will be a crucial part of future hydrogen infrastructure, and is critical for scaling #renewable H2. A number of different options exist, but geological storage 🪨, particularly salt caverns, offer the best attributes for European purposes. 6/7
There is a lot of geological storage potential in 🇪🇺 through new developments, or by repurposing existing storage. However, given the lead times (~10 yrs) it's important to start planning today. By 2050, a lot more greenfield capacity will also need to come online. 7/7
If you made it this far but still have questions check our recent publication!📜
🚨ICYMI: Last week, @ETC_energy released two exciting deep dives; one on electrification, the other on #hydrogen
🧵with some of my favorite charts 👇(1/9)
🏭Debates around future hydrogen demand are heated, but we can all agree on it's importance for the industrial sector.
🔥 Small role in building heat
🚛🚢✈️Important role in transport, but sub-sectoral allocation varies
⚡️I'd say power is the wildcard here (2/9)
Here's a more detailed breakdown of ETC's scenarios. Power sector demand could be x3 what's displayed in the previous tweet. My takeaway is that the power sector could very well turn out to be the largest consumer of hydrogen. (3/9)
Electrolysers are the single biggest market. OEMs active across electrolysers and fuel cells can leverage manufacturing synergies to accelerate the cost curve for competitive advantage.
But stack manufacturing synergies will only get you so far. Balance of plant can account for as much as half of electrolyser system costs.
“e-hydrogen could turn into the largest electricity consumer and double power demand in Europe”
This idea is of course borne out of some outlandish hydrogen demand scenarios. The analysis we did with Aurora showed there’s no way we could power all that electrolysis affordably.
“The reconversion of gas plants into hydrogen turbines could lift combined cycle gas turbine operators Uniper, Engie and RWE.”
I have two words for the Goldman team: fuel cells.
I am convinced these will eat turbines in long term. Thermal assets are stranded assets.