Green hydrogen is enjoying unprecedented political and business momentum, with the number of policies and projects around the world expanding rapidly. Increasing concerns about carbon emissions and the need to decarbonise the hard to abate sectors have forced countries to facilitate the transition to and increase investments in innovative low-carbon technologies, including green hydrogen.
In their latest analysis Advances in Green Hydrogen Create Opportunity across the Global Power Sector, Frost & Sullivan’s predict a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 57% increase in global green hydrogen production between 2019 and 2030. Precisely, 5.7 million tons of green hydrogen will be produced in 2030, up from the 40,000 tons in 2019.
The EU already published its hydrogen strategy last summer, aiming for 40 GW by 2030. In this way, Europe alone will account for between 2 and 4 million tons of green hydrogen. Triggered by the new incentives available, an increasing number of green hydrogen projects have been launched lately. Between them, ACCIONA’s Power to Green Hydrogen Mallorca project has a peculiar importance. In partnership with FlexiDAO, ACCIONA has developed GreenH2chain®, the world’s first platform based on blockchain technology that guarantees the renewable origin of green hydrogen.
What is green hydrogen and why is it relevant?
Today’s hydrogen is almost exclusively produced through fossil-fuel processes releasing carbon straight into the atmosphere. IEA estimates that production of hydrogen is responsible for CO2 emissions of around 830 million tonnes of carbon dioxide per year, equivalent to the CO2 emissions of the United Kingdom and Indonesia combined.
Instead, green hydrogen is a carbon zero power source, since it does not emit polluting gases either during combustion or during production. The key is using renewable energy to power an electrolyser. It will then split water into oxygen and (green) hydrogen. Once produced through electrolysis, the hydrogen can be stored, transported and processed for a growing range of applications.
Green hydrogen is driving attention mainly for two reasons: it’s big potential in helping decarbonizing the hard to abate sectors, and it’s capacity to increase flexibility in power systems and procurement.
Hard to abate sectors
Energy efficiency, renewable power, and direct electrification can reduce emissions from electricity production and a portion of transportation; but the last 15 percent or so of the economy, comprising aviation, shipping, long-distance trucking and concrete and steel manufacturing, is difficult to decarbonize because these sectors require high energy density fuel or intense heat. Hydrogen has the highest mass energy density of any fuel and could meet the needs of these sectors. For example, hydrogen fuel cell buses typically have a range of approximately 500 km, versus 200 km for electric buses. With this range, hydrogen has both the potential to decarbonise rural transport and to offer a solution for uninterrupted services for long-distance trucking. On top of it, it’s also an extremely effective medium for energy storage and distribution.
Energy procurement and power systems
One of the limits of wind and solar power is their intermittent nature, which is not only bringing the power system to its limits, but it also makes it difficult to ensure a continuous supply of renewable energy. As a consequence, the complete decarbonization of the energy supply of a company is almost impossible if storage options are not employed.
There are various options to resolve these issues, such as grid infrastructure upgrades or technologies for short- or longer-term balancing of supply and demand, e.g., flexible back-up generation, demand-side management, or energy storage technologies. However, green hydrogen offers valuable advantages in this context, as it avoids CO2 emissions, can be deployed at large scale, and can be made available everywhere.
Electrolysis can convert excess renewable electricity into green hydrogen during times of oversupply. The produced hydrogen is stored for future re-use, even several months away. Hydrogen has the potential to improve economic efficiency of renewable investments, enhance security of power supply and serve as a carbon-free seasonal storage, supplying energy when renewable energy production is low and energy demand is high, e.g., in European winter.
In the case of ACCIONA’s project Power to Green Hydrogen Mallorca, green hydrogen will have multiple applications. First of all, it will be used to fuel buses and rental cars powered by fuel cells via hydrogen filling stations, as an application to tackle hard to abate sectors.
It will also generate power for commercial and public buildings, and part of it will be injected into the island’s gas grid. This project will be a decisive step not only to decarbonise the Balearic Islands, but also to test the real impact of a green hydrogen ecosystem.
To monitor the impact of the project, GreenH2chain® platform will trace the production and flow of green hydrogen. Based on blockchain, the platform will allow final users to verify the transportation and delivery process of green hydrogen and monitor the decarbonization process of their own energy supply.
How does green hydrogen tracking work
Blockchain-based platforms excel at proving an event took place. Once a piece of data is stored in a blockchain, it is inextricably linked to every other record. In other words, blockchain is perfectly suited to tasks such as guarantees of authenticity.
In the case of green hydrogen, blockchain acts as a digital notary which ensures that the green hydrogen sourced by a company is produced with renewable energy.
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