As the world is moving towards achieving “net zero emission targets”, Green hydrogen is the most promising solution for carbon neutrality/low carbon economy, as it is produced using renewable resources to split water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen. Few of the major challenges for the adoption of green hydrogen is its cost (60% cost of hydrogen constitute of Renewable energy cost), and lack of infrastructure for producing, transportation and storage of hydrogen. To tackle the challenges, certain trends and developments are happening in industry:
1. Cost reduction: reducing the cost of renewables and this trend is expected to continue, which proportionally decrease the cost of green hydrogen.
2. Increase in demand: through multiple end use such as green hydrogen to be used as fuel for transportation, heating, and industrial processes, and as a storage medium for renewable energy. Even European Union has set a target of producing 40 GW of renewable hydrogen by 2030. These targets in turn increases the demand and decrease cost of green hydrogen.
3. Innovation:Through improving the efficiency of electrolysis, developing better catalysts, and reducing the amount of electricity needed.
4. Infrastructure Investment: By building new electrolysis facilities, pipelines for transporting hydrogen, and storage facilities, governments and private companies are expected to invest.
The industrial sectors are likely to adopt green hydrogen as feedstock and drive demand in the long term are as following:
1. Ammonia production
2. Iron and steel production
3. Crude oil refining
4. Methanol production
5. Transport sector: long-haul heavy-duty trucking, maritime shipping and high-speed long-haul passenger ferries, boats, and cruising applications.
6. Energy carrier: for process heating applications will depend on the economics of appropriate blending concentrations in existing pipelines and creation of dedicated infrastructure in the long term.
Factors that drive the techno-economics of the green hydrogen supply chain:
1. Renewable energy resource availability and economics of round-the-clock power supply: This includes geographical location and proximity of RE resources, CAPEX and OPEX of round the clock power supply designed for optimum CUF (>70%) w.r.t electrolyzerstack load, interstate / intra-state transmission/wheeling charges, banking, and other grid support charges if any.
2. Electrolyzersystem efficiency, stack durability and economics: This includes CAPEX and OPEX of electrolyzerstack, water supply, treatment, and balance of system. Energy consumption per unit of H2 production (efficiency) at different load factors, stack durability and response for intermittent supply also affect the economics of production operations. This component typically accounts for 30-40% in the overall LCOH.
3. Energy efficiency and economics of compression and storage: This includes CAPEX and OPEX for compression system, energy efficiency and consumption, pressure vessel, type of pressure vessel, end-use pressure requirement, days of autonomy for sizing pressure vessel, etc. This component typically accounts for up to 25% of overall LCOH.
India’s National Green Hydrogen Mission is a government initiative aimed at promoting the use of hydrogen as a clean and renewable energy source in the country, and it has just received INR 19,700 crore rupees as a part of the national budget 2023.
Overall, the future of green hydrogen looks promising. As the world works to decarbonize its energy systems, green hydrogen is likely to play a crucial role in achieving that goal.
