Renew Extra Weekly

In its 2022 REPowerEU plan, the EU sought to eliminate dependence on Russian fossil fuel imports well before 2030, with hydrogen playing a key role. In a new report Agora Enerigewende, the German energy analysts,  agree that ‘Europe will need a significant amount of renewable hydrogen to become climate neutral’, but it says that, in its Gas Exit scenario, hydrogen demand by 2030 ‘could be only a fifth of that foreseen in REPowerEU. By prioritising direct electrification and reserving its use for no-regret applications, the EU would need only 116 TWh of renewable hydrogen by 2030, compared to 666 TWh in REPowerEU. This is more cost-effective, more realistic from a security of supply perspective & consistent with the hydrogen sub-targets in the new Renewable Energy Directive. The REPowerEU target should thus be revised’. The case for a rethink becomes even stronger when the you look at the difference in hydrogen imports. 333 TWh of hydrogen imports are foreseen under REPowerEU in 203

The debate over hydrogen rumbles on. In a new report, the UK Energy Networks Association say that ‘without hydrogen, there will be no Net Zero’ and that ‘without gas pipeline infrastructure, we risk increasing the cost of the transition to clean energy’. As maybe you might expect from ENA, as a gas pipe lobbyist, it looks to ‘a balanced decarbonisation solution that includes a significant role for hydrogen transformation, alongside biogases & electrification’. It says there is ‘good evidence to suggest that this balanced approach is the most cost-effective way to decarbonise.’  The ENA’s report ‘ A hydrogen vision of the UK’ , notes that UK’s gas network consists of ‘over 280,000 km of pipes, enough to travel around the world seven times’. It says that around 75% of the old iron gas distribution pipes have been replaced, so that the gas networks ‘stand in a strong position to transition to new, low carbon gases’, with the development of the hydrogen economy being seen as a way to ‘

Hydrogen is in the news regularly these days - see my last few posts. Some are quite keen on it - see the recent hydrogen champion report. Others are pretty hostile , seeing it as mostly a fossil fuel ploy. Well that certainly is where blue hydrogen comes from, with carbon capture and storage to clean it up a bit. Others think hydrogen has been oversold, including green hydrogen for heating: Michael Liebreich says ‘it will take until 2030 to rein in the current bout of hydrogen mania… cult deprogramming takes time'  The UK Climate Change Committee (CCC), an independent government advisory body, is less severe. In its new report on ‘Delivering a reliable decarbonisation system’ it sees hydrogen production, use and infrastructure as important: ‘It will be needed for hard-to-decarbonise sectors such as industry and shipping and is expected to have a role in power generation, although the scale of this remains uncertain.’ It also adds that it is likely to provide flexibility in the

Green hydrogen has its attractions and is being promoted around the world, although not all end uses are seen as good for it. The 100% Renewable UK lobby group has produced a draft position paper setting out the pros and cons of each hydrogen option. It says that ‘whilst we accept that achieving a unanimous agreement amongst a global community of energy experts informed by their own professional and academic backgrounds and their understanding of their own national and regional perspectives is unlikely, the consensus is such that it is possible to determine a broad hierarchy of uses for hydrogen commensurate with achieving the goal of a one hundred percent renewable energy future’. In this context, it sees green hydrogen, made by electrolysis using renewable power, and used for decarbonising heavy industry, as being very attractive, as is using surplus renewable power to make hydrogen for bulk storage for power grid balancing.  It sees its use for shipping too as a good idea. Its use f