Hydrogen Fuel: The next step on our path to a carbon-neutral future
Bikram Raj Kumar, Co-Founder, ResearchWire Knowledge Solutions Pvt. Ltd.
In the August of last year, as the world was gearing up for COP-26, two researchers with the MIT Energy Initiative were researching alternatives for fossil-fuel run back-up peaker plants for the Californian power grid. The state draws roughly 27% of its power from wind and solar. This made dependability an issue. Fossil fuel-run back-up plugged the gap effectively but Emre Gencer and Drake D. Hernandez wanted to establish the viability of replacing the peaker plants with equally reliable greener alternatives.
The conclusions they came to will reassure the global energy community that it is on the right track. Gencer and Hernandez found that, while scaling and technology still need to be looked into, hydrogen is an economical back-up alternative for grids that run on renewable energy.
A mainstay of the net zero ecosystem
As governments across the globe rush to implement strategies that will wean their countries off fossil fuels and drive down greenhouse gas emissions, hydrogen fuel is emerging as one of the key alternatives that will help achieve carbon neutrality.
In November 2021, 32 countries signed the Glasgow Breakthrough Pact at the COP-26 to keep global temperature rise within 1.5 degrees Celsius. The fourth point of the pact pledges to make renewable, affordable, low-carbon hydrogen widely available by 2030.
A clean-burning fuel, hydrogen reacts with oxygen in fuel cells to produce heat and electricity, and non-polluting water vapour is the only by-product. While availability and reliability are not a concern, the fuel poses challenges on the production and storage fronts.
The fuel cell technology itself is nascent and has room for efficiency and resilience. Currently, the most effective method of extracting hydrogen is by reforming natural gas, which adds to greenhouse gas emissions. Since the right trade-off between weight and volume needs to be found due to the peculiar nature of the fuel, supply chain innovation is needed.
Ripples across the globe
Despite the challenges, the global community is nowhere near giving up. Initiatives worldwide are attempting to produce and use this clean fuel feasibly at scale. Huyen N. Dinh, a senior scientist and group manager at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), and director of HydroGEN, a consortium that accelerates research for low-cost hydrogen production, told an MIT energy symposium in June 2022, “We think that the 2020s is the decade of hydrogen,”
The alternative fuel is projected to create 30 million jobs and $2.5 trillion in global revenue by 2050. The United States is strongly backing initiatives to bring down the cost of hydrogen fuel from $5 per kilogram to $1 per kilogram within a decade, much faster than similar trajectories for wind and solar. More than $9 billion will be directed toward building four clean hydrogen hubs around that country. Global energy company Equinor will leverage hydrogen to decarbonize one of the UK’s biggest industrial clusters and also sees the fuel as a crucial component of its 2050 carbon-neutrality goal.
Meanwhile, China the largest producer of hydrogen today at 33 million tonnes, is not resting on its laurels. The country has laid out a long-term plan for scaling renewable-based hydrogen, and ensuring the fuel fulfills 10 percent of the country’s energy needs by 2050.
The Indian outlook
India, a signatory of the Glasgow pact, is also up to speed on its hydrogen initiatives. A few months before COP-26, the Government of India launched the National Hydrogen Mission. The Mission will help make India a global green hydrogen hub by facilitating the energy sector to achieve the target of production of 5 million tonnes of green hydrogen by 2030.
Some of the policy terms include expediting permissions for renewable energy access for manufacturers, providing a bank for unused power, waiver of inter-state transmission charges, provision of grid connectivity and port access on priority, and a single window for ease of doing business. The expected outcome is three-pronged– clean fuel for all Indians, a green economy with low dependence on fossil fuel imports, and establishing India as an export hub for green hydrogen and green ammonia. In February 2022, phase one of the mission was officially launched.
Industry reaction to the GoI policy has been fairly quick. In March this year, six renewable energy companies came together to form the Independent Green Hydrogen Association. This consortium will foster cooperation across the ecosystem, and provide expert inputs on the manufacturing, regulatory and financial fronts to make India a global export leader for the fuel.
A month later, in April, oil giant IOC, construction behemoth L&T and energy company ReNew Power announced a joint venture to manufacture zero-carbon emitting green hydrogen. Corporate houses, Reliance Industries, JSW Steel, Jindal Steel, NTPC, and BPCL have also announced plans to foray into the sector.
The market scape
Is all this excitement justified, you ask? The answer is yes. International analysts are very bullish about India’s global green hydrogen play. And their rationale is sound.
The global green hydrogen market size was valued at $0.3 billion in 2020 and is expected to hit $9.8 billion by 2028, at a CAGR of 54.7%. With lower renewable electricity costs, thanks to established infrastructure, India can bring down the price of the fuel by half by 2025, according to Morgan Stanley. A significant element here will be the scale that large corporate houses can bring, with government and academia as equally-contributing stakeholders.
Green hydrogen manufacturing is on the cusp of explosive growth. Global and local businesses that are stepping into this space will be timing it perfectly. Demand for hydrogen, which has grown more than threefold since 1975, continues to pick up.
No doubt, a complex part of the journey needs to be negotiated, which includes scaling the technology, creating the demand, and building a resilient value chain. Rigorous groundwork, research, and scenario planning will help chart the course.
About the Author
Bikram Raj Kumar is the Director at Researchwire knowledge Solutions Pvt. Ltd. He is extremely proficient in patents, technology strategy, intellectual property, research & consulting and his command over minute detailing of concepts has helped achieve many stark achievements for Researchwire and their clients worldwide. If you have any comments or concerns about this blog post, then please contact the Researchwire team here: query@researchwire.in
#greenhydrogen #hydrogen #carbonneutral #carbonneutralfuture #future #sustainable #sustainablefuel #energytransition #globalenergy #renewableenergy #netzero #netzerofuture #glasgow #patent #technology #carbonneutrality #Hydrogenfuel
