Green or blue hydrogen : (much) more than a matter of colours !

Proost, Joris
(2023) 7th Internat. Conf. on Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Fuel Cells & Electrolysis. Materials, Systems & Applications (CARISMA) — Location: Lefkada, Greece (1.October.2023)

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Hydrogen demand is expected to increase significantly over the coming decades. According to a recent study from the International Energy Agency (IEA) [1], a 4-5 fold increase up to 300 Mt/yr is projected for reaching climate neutrality by 2050 (cfr. Figure below). By then, the major use will shift from industry to transport, with 30% being dedicated to direct use in fuelcell driven trucks, busses and trains, 20% to liquid hydro-carbon production as a synthetic fuel for aviation, and 10% to the production of ammonia as a shipping fuel. From 2050 onwards, a small fraction of hydrogen gas will be used in buildings and in the power sector as well. On the production side, to satisfy this increasing H2 demand, a massive deployment of green H2 will be needed. By 2050, it will require a renewable electricity (RE) capacity of about 1500 GW for dedicated use in water electrolysers, representing about 10% of the total installed RE power capacity worldwide. As it is hard to imagine that more than 10% of this capacity will be dedicated for green H2 production [2], other production routes will be needed as well as an additional source of low-carbon H2. The majority of H2 production today is assured by Steam Methane Reforming (SMR), a very CO2-intensive chemical production route also called grey H2. The initial fossil-based grey H2 becomes blue when such SMR installations are equipped for active CO2 capture, utilisation and/or storage (CCUS). From the Figure below, green and "other" low-carbon H2 are expected to contribute in more or less equal parts from 2050 onwards to assure the global low-carbon H2 production capacity. In other words, we will need both green and other low-carbon H2 to satisfy the projected growing H2 demand over the coming decades. If not, we may not to be able to use H2 for some applications [3]. As a result, in order for H2 to hold its promises towards contributing to the energy transition, critical, well-thought and strategic upfront choices will have to be made. In this paper, we will discuss and motivate a selection of applications for which either green or "other" H2 would preferably be used, taking into account the specificities of both green and blue H2 production.
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Proost, J. (2023). Green or blue hydrogen : (much) more than a matter of colours ! CARISMA: Book of abstracts, p. 31. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/224097