The role of hydrogen in making Europe climate neutral was the central theme of an event on Wednesday (7 July), which presented the findings of the Hydrogen4EU report, a multi-disciplinary research partnership funder by the oil and gas industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The findings of the report were clear: although green hydrogen made from renewable electricity sources will be crucial to meet the EU\u2019s climate neutrality goal, it won\u2019t be sufficient to meet all future hydrogen demand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe biggest user of Hydrogen in 2050 is the transport sector,\u201d said Deloitte\u2019s Johannes Tr\u00fcby, one of the authors of the report, who predicted that Europe\u2019s total hydrogen demand is likely to be above 100 million tonnes by mid-century.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The report estimates that more than 50 million tonnes of hydrogen will be used in transport by 2050, either directly in fuel cells, or as part of synthetic fuels, while European industry will require 45 million tonnes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
IFP Energies Nouvelles (France) and SINTEF (Norway) are the two research organisations behind the report, which was funded by 17 partners: BP, ConocoPhillips, Concawe, ENI, Equinor, Ervia, ExxonMobil, Gassco, Hydrogen Europe, IOGP, Norwegian Oil & Gas Association, OMV, Shell, Snam, Total, Wintershall Dea, Zukunft Gas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Adina V\u0103lean, the EU\u2019s transport commissioner, was the keynote speaker at the event. She said the European Commission is set to modernise its guidelines for the trans-European transport network (TEN-T) in a proposal due to be published in October.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHydrogen fuel cells vehicles have a role to play particularly for long distance heavy duty road haul,\u201d V\u0103lean said. She also noted hydrogen\u2019s clear role in Europe in aviation and maritime transport.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hydrogen seems indispensable to decarbonise long-distance transport, whether by land, air or sea. \u201cHydrogen has the advantage of a high energy density that is needed to propel big and heavy vehicles over long distances,\u201d said Tr\u00fcby.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The report advises policymakers to keep all options open when it comes to hydrogen production, saying a technologically diverse model brings down the cost of building a hydrogen value chain by \u20ac2 trillion by 2050.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Green or blue hydrogen?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At more than 100 million tonnes per year, the report projects that hydrogen demand by 2050 will be massive, mostly driven by transport and heavy industries like steelmaking, cement and chemicals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This means both production and transport will become a challenge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Repurposing existing gas pipelines to carry hydrogen would \u201ccost not more than 20%\u201d of total infrastructure cost, said No\u00e9 van Hulst, Hydrogen Advisor at the International Energy Agency (IEA), who is also advisor at Gasunie, a Dutch gas company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to van Hulst, the blending of gas and hydrogen in natural gas pipelines can also be envisaged as a low-cost intermediary solution, because it requires no changes to infrastructure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yet, the report acknowledges that most hydrogen demand by 2050 will have to come from renewable energy sources. And to achieve that, a lot more renewable electricity capacity will be needed to power electrolysers that split water molecules to generate zero-carbon hydrogen, the report said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To fulfil Europe\u2019s 2050 hydrogen demand, \u201c1,000-1,700 GW of dedicated solar photovoltaics, a similar amount of wind power and 680 to 1500 GW of electrolysers\u201d would be required, Tr\u00fcby said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As of today, the EU has installed 120 GW of photovoltaics and 170 GW of wind power in total. That would be enough to meet only 10% of green hydrogen demand by 2050, Tr\u00fcby said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He therefore concludes that so-called \u201cblue\u201d hydrogen, made from natural gas with subsequent carbon capture and storage (CCS) must be promoted at European level, in order to contribute to the low-carbon hydrogen mix.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, the European Commission is cautious about throwing its full weight behind blue hydrogen. In its hydrogen strategy presented in July last year, the EU executive charted a path towards 100% hydrogen production from renewable energy sources, saying blue hydrogen will only be supported as a stepping stone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Low-carbon hydrogen \u201cis very much a transitional time thing\u201d from the Commission\u2019s perspective, said Peter Handley, deputy director at the European Commission\u2019s directorate for internal market, entrepreneurship and SMEs (DG GROW).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to Handley, \u201c80% of the production side proposals\u201d submitted by industry via the Commission\u2019s Clean Hydrogen Alliance \u201cwere related to electrolysers\u201d that produce zero carbon hydrogen made from renewable electricity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
By 2030, the Commission aims to build 40 gigawatts of electrolysers across Europe, capable of producing up to 10 million tonnes of renewable hydrogen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Towards hydrogen import dependency?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The report also underline the importance of importing hydrogen from gas-producing countries such as Russia and Iran.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, EU officials are sceptical about this. \u201cIf you\u2019re going to replace a gas import dependency for hydrogen, you\u2019re missing an opportunity,\u201d said Handley.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some EU states also look suspiciously at hydrogen imports. While the energy hungry industrial north \u2013 Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands \u2013 is looking at ramping up hydrogen imports from places like Australia, others like France, Hungary and Poland are dubious, saying Europe should aim first at developing its own industrial production capacity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The anti-importers have also found an ally in Europe\u2019s electricity giants, who have called on the European Commission to impose a carbon tariff on hydrogen imports \u201cin order to avoid fossil-based and highly emitting hydrogen imports\u201d entering the EU market.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The role of hydrogen in making Europe climate neutral was the central theme of an event on Wednesday (7 July), which presented the findings of the Hydrogen4EU report, a multi-disciplinary research partnership funder by the oil and gas industry. The findings of the report were clear: although green hydrogen made from renewable electricity sources will […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","nova_meta_subtitle":"A new report by Deloitte says massive cost savings can be achieved on the way towards climate neutrality if gas is given a more prominent role","footnotes":""},"categories":[5571],"tags":[13087,10630,15205],"supplier":[5585],"class_list":["post-92618","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-co2-based","tag-climate","tag-hydrogen","tag-transport","supplier-european-union"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92618","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92618"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92618\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92618"},{"taxonomy":"supplier","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/supplier?post=92618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}