already fallen 6 0 per c ent in the pas t f ive
years, and we predict that the total cost of
producing green hydrogen will fall by the
same amount by 2050.
By 2050, Statkraft’s Low Emissions
Scenario suggests that current grey
hydrogen production will be almost fully
replaced by blue and green hydrogen as the
industrial hydrogen race heats up. As of
September this year, 20 countries as well as
the EU have launched hydrogen strategies,
with a further 23 in the process of doing so,
including the US, Brazil and China.
Over the past two years, Europe has taken
a leading role globally in establishing clean
hydrogen industry, in terms of ambition,
financial support and number of projects.
In addition to hydrogen consumption for
feedstock in industry, clean hydrogen will
also account for 5 per cent of global final
energy demand by 2050 and could account
for up to a fifth of Europe’s power demand.
The increase in total hydrogen demand up to
20 5 0 will primarily be from new uses of
hydrogen, such as in the steel industry and
long-distance transport (including clean
ammonia for maritime transport).
We have started on the path to a net zero
economy, powered by renewable energy.
Quick-to-deploy wind and solar power must
be developed at pac e to t ake their plac e as
our lead energy sources in the coming years.
However, even with unprecedented
renewables development, we will not meet
required targets without green hydrogen.renewable energy when supply is higher than
demand. It’s a mechanism for storing excess
renewable energy and helping to smooth out
generation costs and power prices; so
investing in building up hydrogen reserves
will see a more resilient energy system.
There has been so much talk about the
hydrogen e c onomy that it is easy to forge t
that clean hydrogen remains largely on the
drawing board today. In 2020, global capacity
of the electrolysers needed to produce green
hydrogen was just 200 megawatts. By 2040,
this is predicted to grow to 200 gigawatts, a
1000-fold increase.
But just as important as increasing the
supply of clean hydrogen is the need to
create new demand. Globally, we currently
produce 87 million tonnes of hydrogen from
natural gas, with more than 10 tonnes of CO 2
produced for every tonne of hydrogen. The
first priority is to decarbonise this “grey”
hydrogen. This can initially be done by
adding carbon capture and storage (CCS)
technology to the steam methane reforming
plants that currently produce what’s known
as “blue” hydrogen.
Blue hydrogen is very much a bridging
technology, though, and question marks
remain about the emergence of CCS,
whose promise has consistently failed to
emerge over the years.
In the longer term, green hydrogen will
become the preferred solution. As production
scales up and the cost of electrolysers and
the associated infrastructure falls, along with
the further expansion of renewable energy
capacity, it will become the dominant source
of the gas. The cost of electrolysers hasOur future energy system will
become increasingly electricDavid Flood, Country Manager
Statkraft UKperiods and decarbonising industries such
as ammonia, refineries and steelmaking.
In such “hard-to-abate” sectors, it is
difficult to use electricity directly to replace
fossil fuels to cut emissions, because carbon
is central to current production processes.
But these industries can use hydrogen
instead, providing a way to apply the
electrification revolution to areas that would
other wise be unable to benef it from it. And
by creating that hydrogen using renewable
energy, we can provide a way for these
industries to decarbonise – something that
was thought impossible just a few years ago.
Hydrogen c an also be used in heating and
transport – particularly heavy transport such
as trucking, trains and shipping.
Green hydrogen also creates a market forST
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