Financial Benefits

A tech-powered approach to overcoming grid bottlenecks

Transmission lines outside Houston, Texas (Courtesy: BFS Man/Flickr)

Contributed by Grzegorz Marecki, co-founder and CEO of Continuum Industries
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The expansion of electricity transmission infrastructure is crucial for meeting growing energy demands and accelerating the United States’ clean energy transition. However, spatial planning processes are struggling to keep pace with the speed of change required to tackle climate change. Building clean energy infrastructure today can take more than a decade, largely due to delays in planning and permitting. 

The root of this challenge lies in the complexity of infrastructure planning. Developers need to simultaneously meet the requirements of dozens of stakeholders, which demands a balance between technical and regulatory considerations, as well as the perspectives, priorities, and concerns of diverse stakeholders. Utilities, traditionally functioning as asset managers, are now faced with the need to become developers, driving the rapid expansion of America’s grid demands. However, their processes have not evolved at the pace required to meet this urgent need.

Additionally, as the volume of work increases, the industry grapples with insufficient resources to deliver at the speed required. Automation of repetitive tasks can help free up professionals, enabling them to focus on more complex challenges. The industry also faces constraints due to the limited number of specialists available for traditional tasks.

To overcome these challenges, the industry must embrace a technology-powered paradigm shift. A tech-enabled approach to planning processes, supported by professional oversight, has the potential to revolutionize the development of new energy networks.

Frontloading data for more predictable permitting

With the advancement of technology, governments and other key stakeholders now have access to unprecedented amounts of data. If harnessed effectively, this data can help infrastructure developers expedite decision-making processes and streamline the planning and permitting phases. 

New tools allow for a comprehensive data dive right at the project’s start, providing a full picture of constraints and opportunities. AI algorithms offer intelligent insights, guiding developers toward optimal decisions. These tools empower users by allowing them to configure assumptions, preferences, and project goals before the algorithm runs, ensuring a clear link between inputs and outputs. For example, easier access to spatial data makes it possible for developers to get a comprehensive view of the permits that would be required. Traditionally, they would have to wait a few months for a manually produced report from a consultant. This also allows the professionals to focus on the areas of highest risk. 

Automated routing for unbiased solutions 

By automating routine processes, developers can assess more alternatives than was ever possible without automation and remove decision biases. Algorithms can explore and optimize different solutions for infrastructure assets, simultaneously considering factors such as cost, technical feasibility, and environmental and community impact. 

While still in its early stages of adoption in the US, automated routing is already demonstrating its potential, and it might pay to look across the pond for an example to follow. The UK is slightly ahead of the US when it comes to grid expansion, and more than just encouraging is now expecting transmission companies to standardize and automate routing. The government has adopted a package of 19 measures to slash the project development timeline from 14 to 7 years, but utilities that have adopted a heavily automated approach say that they’ve been able to kick-start their projects and complete 12 months’ worth of work in as little as 8 weeks.

As the energy sector transforms and projects become increasingly complex, automated tools will empower developers to respond swiftly to changing requirements, market dynamics, and regulatory landscapes.

Transparency and accountability through comprehensive decision-making

In the past, manual record-keeping and documentation processes left room for ambiguity and potential oversights. However, technology can establish a reliable audit trail, ensuring that every decision is logged, timestamped, and linked to the specific dataset or analysis that influenced it. This record enables project teams to revisit and refine decisions, supporting external regulatory approvals and fostering accountability throughout the process.

Breaking silos with cross-department collaboration

Technology can also bridge the divide between internal teams, fostering smooth collaboration and streamlining decision-making processes. Providing a shared platform for data and insights ensures that everyone involved in the project is working from the same information, reducing miscommunication and delays.

Through leveraging technology, traditionally siloed disciplines can replace slow email communication channels with rapid feedback based on standard criteria. For example, when engineers move a tower to avoid difficult ground conditions closer to a water body, they receive automatic feedback on whether the new position meets the requirements for setbacks from the water based on environmental protection policies.

Public engagement and transparent project narratives

Beyond internal teams, technology plays a crucial role in engaging the public and garnering support for critical infrastructure projects. Presenting decisions backed by solid evidence and interactive visualizations makes complex data digestible and addresses concerns head-on. This transparency builds trust and fosters a sense of shared ownership, crucial for navigating the permitting process and ensuring community buy-in. 

Stakeholder engagement is also changing thanks to technology. Dynamic maps and immersive 3D visualizations now allow project teams to collaboratively iterate with stakeholders, demonstrating the project’s evolution over time and minimizing impacts. This interactive approach, coupled with routing and siting automation, eliminates the traditional time constraints associated with manual rerouting.

The submission of documents, particularly environmental baseline schedules and reports, has also evolved. Algorithms can now identify potential impacts, presenting them to professionals for screening and defining mitigation strategies. This not only speeds up the process but also frees up professionals for more strategic tasks.

The Linear Infrastructure Planning Panel provides a noteworthy example of the efforts made towards more transparent and dynamic project planning. The Panel’s purpose is to engage key public interest stakeholders, including social and environmental groups, in the development of good practices and ethical approaches in the use of new techniques, such as algorithms and advanced software tools, for infrastructure planning. By actively involving various stakeholders, the Panel contributes to shaping responsible and inclusive technology integration in the planning process, setting a precedent for the industry.

Looking ahead

The American Council on Renewable Energy emphasizes that a $1.5 trillion investment in new transmission infrastructure by 2030 is not just a financial commitment, but an investment in a clean energy future. In this landscape, technology is not a silver bullet, but still a powerful catalyst for change. It facilitates efficiency, transparency, and collaboration, enabling informed decision-making and accelerating the development of a robust and resilient grid.

By embracing a tech-powered approach, the US can overcome the bottlenecks plaguing the current system and realize the full potential of clean energy. This transformation isn’t about replacing human expertise; it’s about empowering and augmenting it, fostering a synergy that paves the way for a more efficient and sustainable future.

What’s ‘Greenwashing’ and How Can I Avoid It?

By:  Jacqueline Poh
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Over the last decade, companies and investors have come to pay more attention to environmental concerns, often with a goal of offering “green” products or making “green” investments. But the companion of green is often what’s known as greenwashing. In some countries, regulators are trying to clean up the field, launching investigations and levying fines. They have the backing of some advocates of environmentally minded investing worried that greenwashing’s taint may undermine the field.

1. What is greenwashing?

It’s the use of misleading labels or advertising to create an undeserved image of environmental responsibility. Here are some eamples:

  • In December, the UK’s antitrust regulator began an investigation of Unilever Plc, the maker of Dove soap and Cif cleaner, for allegedly overstating the environmental qualities of certain products.
  • Fashion companies Asos and Boohoo and airlines such as Air France-KLM, and Deutsche Lufthansa AG were told by regulators to discontinue misleading ads that made air travel seem more eco-friendly than it is.
  • In investing, the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority rolled out a framework in November designed to protect retail investors from misleading claims by firms with so-called ESG funds — where investment decisions are shaped by environmental, social or governance factors.
  • In the US, Deutsche Bank AG’s DWS asset management arm agreed in September to pay a total of $25 million to settle Securities and Exchange Commission probes into alleged greenwashing and anti-money laundering lapses. The penalties included $19 million for “materially misleading statements” about how the bank incorporated ESG factors into research and investment recommendations.

2. What’s the incentive for greenwashing?

The ultimate attraction is the favorable image companies project across to clients, investors, shareholders, lenders and even potential employees. But different players have different reasons for exaggeration. When companies fudge on something they’re selling, it’s because they want environmentally minded consumers to be drawn to their products. When they’re borrowing money, they may be chasing a “greenium” — the money they can save by qualifying for the better terms lenders might extend to green or social projects or to ones with ESG goals. Brazil raised $2 billion in the bond market in November 2023 with proceeds earmarked for green and social work, and the debt was priced lower than initial guidance – meaning the Amazon forest nation is paying lower interest rates, compared with a conventional bond. And investment managers might put a greener label than is warranted on a fund to draw in more assets.

3. How big a problem is it?

In 2022, Bloomberg News analyzed more than 100 bonds worth almost $70 billion tied to issuers’ ESG credentials that were sold by global companies to investors in Europe. The analysis found that the majority were tied to climate targets that were weak, irrelevant or even already achieved. Some companies promised to do no more than maintain their existing ESG ratings. And some of the fastest-growing areas of ESG financing involve so-called sustainability-linked loans (SLL) (and similar bonds) in which the connection between environmental labels and environmental goals can be tenuous.

4. How does sustainability-linked debt work?

Sustainability-linked bonds and sustainability-linked loans are signed with commitments from borrowers to achieve certain environmental or social targets, but those goals may be changed in an increasing number of cases. The more flexible agreements even allow issuers to adjust those targets under certain conditions without incurring a penalty. Issuers argue that they have to look for ways to cope with increasingly volatile markets in which key ESG parameters such as energy prices become harder to predict. Then there’s the “sleeping” sustainability-linked debt where financing has an ESG label but with no immediate sustainability targets. Other approaches push responsibility even further out: Bank of China Ltd.’s so-called re-linked bond sold in 2021 is tied to the performance of a pool of sustainability-linked loans made to its clients — that is, not to anything BOC is or isn’t doing in ESG terms, but to the ESG performance of the clients who have taken out those loans.

5. Who’s checking up?

There are dozens of ESG rating and data providers globally, which can provide some assurance that companies and debt issuers are doing their part in sustainability. But private ratings systems can be unreliable and corporate reporting is spotty and hard to compare. All of this greenwashing detective work would be easier if investors and the public had a standardized approach and a robust set of data to compare. Here’s some of what governments and other organizations are doing:

  • Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, India, Singapore, the UK and EU have issued or proposed rules for ESG score providers, though the rules are only mandatory in the EU and India. The UK Financial Conduct Authority, meanwhile, has unveiled its Sustainability Disclosure Requirement ensuring investment products are accurately labeled or presented.
  • The US SEC is working on getting companies to report on their greenhouse gas emissions and other climate matters.
  • The EU enforced the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive in January 2023 which requires companies to disclose risks and opportunities arising from social and environmental issues. For the debt markets, the European Council adopted a green bond standard in October 2023 that specifies where proceeds will be invested and which activities are aligned with the EU taxonomy.
  • Financial bodies, including the International Capital Market Association which oversees the international debt capital markets, and global loan associations have drafted guidelines for ESG debt such as sustainability-linked instruments, green and social financing.

6. Is it just environmental misconduct that’s considered greenwashing?

No. Social and governance aspects have grown to be just as crucial as companies’ environmental efforts, especially since the #MeToo and Black Lives Matter movements began making an impact on consumers’ spending. Many corporations are using their annual sustainability reports to showcase how fair they are in equality employment or what they did to improve employee wellbeing. Given that some of these goals are hard to measure in areas where little data is available, there’s a risk in overstating the results. Of the $1.4 trillion of sustainability-linked debt with disclosed ESG goals, only $352 billion was tied to social objectives, according to BloombergNEF data.

7. How can I avoid investing in greenwashing?

Here are some questions to ask yourself:

  • How ambitious are a company’s goals? Are they integral to its core business, or just superficial commitments? Is the company just promising to do something it would be doing anyway?
  • How specific is the timeframe? Are the goals set annually, or in a way that allows for easy monitoring?
  • Are companies looking at the full “scope” of their emissions, including the carbon released when customers use their products?
  • How much do their plans rely on the kinds of carbon “offsets” that have come under fire for not living up to their promises of environmental benefits?
  • Is there a way to check on companies’ claims, such as in an evaluation by an impartial ESG data- or ratings-provider?
  • Is a company making information about their sustainability goals accessible in a transparent and timely way?

The Importance of Energy Storage in Future Energy Supply

Reviewed by: Olivia Frost
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Energy is vital in the modern world, powering everything from transportation and production to communication and daily services.

Image Credit: Saint-Gobain Tape Solutions

As energy consumption continues to rise with digitalization, changes in mobility, and globalization, sophisticated grids have been developed to provide energy wherever and whenever needed. However, current and past energy consumption has come at a price.

The intensive use of fossil fuels and other limited resources has led to negative impacts, and the need for a more sustainable energy supply has become one of the biggest challenges facing humankind.

Renewable Energy Production on the Rise

Issues related to health, environment, economies, geopolitical risks, dependencies on limited resources, and advancements in sustainable energy production have prompted a reevaluation of energy policy.

According to the EMBER Global Electricity Review 2022, wind and solar reached a record 10% of global electricity in 2021, with all clean power totaling about 38% of the supply.

Renewable energy supply is an important step in reducing the CO2 footprint and mitigating climate change and the consequences caused by the phenomenon. Tapes are essential in helping wind and solar energy supply get into pole position in renewable energy production and grow even further.

Using these tapes in composite molding for wind turbine blades enables manufacturers to protect molds, tool surfaces, and blades, and also helps to reduce cost, effort, and labor time.

Saint-Gobain’s special PET or PTFE tapes, such as the CHR® M-Series or CHR 2255, are designed to withstand high temperatures and can be re-used multiple times, making them an efficient and sustainable solution for large-scale wind turbine production.

These continuous process improvements are crucial to making renewable energy production more efficient and cost-effective.

Using tapes with low CoF can help reduce the rework needed and improve downstream processes’ quality, making wind turbine manufacturing more efficient. The production of larger and more efficient wind turbines will play a significant role in increasing renewable energy capacity and reducing the reliance on fossil fuels.

Figure 1. Wind and solar energy production as part of modern energy supply. 
Image Credit: ShutterStock/liyuhan

Renewable energy production is just one piece of the puzzle. To be consumed, renewable energy often needs to be transformed and transported.

Saint Gobain’s Kapton® and Nomex® tapes with high mechanical, electrical, temperature, and chemical resistance are crucial in ensuring a trouble-free energy supply through new generations of transformers and generators.

UL-recognized Kapton® and Nomex® tapes offer excellent oil compatibility, which is crucial for boosting the performance and longevity of transformers and generators. As a result, maintenance efforts in electro-mechanical applications can be minimized, and the equipment can operate at peak efficiency for longer periods.

Renewable energy sources may not be available around the clock, which creates intermittency.

Renewable electricity generation does not always align with peak demand hours, causing grid stress due to fluctuations and power peaks. Unpredictable weather events can disrupt these technologies.

The current infrastructure is mainly designed to support regional fossil fuel and nuclear plants. As a result, renewable energy often needs to be transported over long distances from the remote areas where it is produced to the regions it is consumed.

Renewable energy sources, such as solar and wind power, can be unpredictable and generate surplus energy. Efficient storage systems are needed to store excess energy during low demand and release it when demand is high.

Image Credit: Saint-Gobain Tape Solutions

The Importance of Energy Storage in Future Energy Supply

Sustainability is a crucial factor for economic growth, and it will continue to be an important consideration in the future.

Demand for clean energy drives sustainable technology development that will impact future energy and the environment.

Stationary energy storage is essential in transitioning to a sustainable energy system with higher shares of renewable energy.

Energy storage has become a ubiquitous component of the electricity grid, leading to a boom in storage capacity worldwide as electricity is expected to make up half of the final energy consumption by 2050.

Figure 2. Global cumulative energy storage installations 2015-30, trends and forecast. Image Credit: BloombergNEF website, accessed July 2022.

Efficient and Safe Energy Supply with Stationary Energy Storage

Figure 3. Energy storage system in power grids.
Image Credit: Shutterstock/Dorothy Chiron

Optimized energy storage systems ensure grid stability and on-demand availability, preventing blackouts. They are essential in modern smart grids, meeting changing energy demands, such as electric mobility.

Energy storage provides flexibility and opportunities for remote areas using various technologies, including electro-mechanical, chemical, thermal, and electrochemical (batteries).

Advancements in battery technologies and their decreasing costs have enabled the growth of stationary energy storage. Improved energy density, cycle life, and safety have made batteries more efficient and reliable, while lower costs have made them more accessible.

Hydroelectric dams store bulk energy in the long term, while short-term energy storage is achieved through various technologies, such as electric batteries, flow batteries, flywheel energy storage, and supercapacitors.

These technologies offer different characteristics and are suitable for various applications, providing flexibility, stability, and reliability to the energy system.

Lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries are the most widely used technology for grid-oriented rechargeable electrochemical battery energy storage systems (BESS). Sodium-ion batteries, although less common, are being developed as a potential alternative.

Sodium-ion batteries for BESS are a promising option due to the abundance of sodium resources but are still in the early stages of development. They have the potential as a cost-effective alternative to Li-ion batteries, with lower power density.

Lithium-ion batteries are well-established in the automotive industry, with higher energy density than sodium-ion batteries.

Lithium-ion batteries require high-end materials and thermal protection but are a good solution for the short-duration range. They have the potential for optimization in terms of energy density, safety, loading cycles, and cost.

As battery technology advances, materials are evolving to improve the energy density, cycle life, safety, and cost of Li-ion batteries.

Compression Pads That Combine Increased Loading Cycles and Energy Density

Compression pads with a low compression force deflection (CFD) curve can improve the lifetime, durability, and performance of Li-ion batteries in energy storage systems.

They distribute forces evenly, prevent internal damage, and reduce the risk of thermal runaway. Optimal pressure on cells can maximize loading cycles and extend battery life.

Micro-cellular polyurethane foams, such as Norseal® PF100 or PF47 Series, are designed for high energy density and optimal thickness.

They enable more cells to be packed into a single unit, increasing performance and allowing for the creation of battery energy storage systems with maximized energy density and minimized space requirements.

Maintaining a sealed environment for batteries is crucial to protect them from outside elements. Saint Gobain provides a range of battery pack housing options that include foam-in-place gasketing, silicone foam rubbers, butyl-coated PVC, and micro-cellular PUR foams.

Maximize Safety to Enhance Battery Pack Performance

Safety is critical in Li-ion battery-based energy storage as flammable materials are used to maximize performance.

Thermal Runaway Protection materials enhance the safety and reliability of battery modules and packs for BESS systems by providing thermal insulation, fire-blocking characteristics, and excellent compression set resistance.

The Norseal TRP Series prevents adjacent cells from experiencing exothermic reactions and stops thermal runaway propagation, protecting battery systems. This technology plays a crucial role in enhancing the safety and reliability of battery energy storage systems.

To regulate battery temperature, improve functionality, and extend battery life in Li-ion batteries, it is important to control heat. The ThermaCool® R10404 Series Thermal Interface Materials effectively remove excess heat, ensuring the safe and efficient operation of battery energy storage systems under demanding conditions.

The thermally conductive gap fillers act as heat sinks, allowing heat to flow away from batteries.

High-End Materials to Create Cost-Effective BESS Solutions

These solutions enable customers to design large BESS systems that are safe and reliable for long-term operation in harsh conditions. By reducing the risk of thermal runaway, this technology enhances the safety and efficiency of battery energy storage systems.

More cells in a battery pack can boost performance and longevity by offering higher energy storage capacity in a smaller space, though this can increase the risk of cell imbalance and failure.

This battery combination is ideal for decentralized and cost-effective energy production and storage in industrial buildings and private households with solar collectors.

Solutions, Know-How, and Capabilities for Next-Level BESS

Tailored materials cater to energy storage systems of various sizes and types by fulfilling their specific cushioning, compression, protection, and insulation needs. This supports the transition to a sustainable energy supply.

Specialized materials and expertise in high-performance battery pack development can aid in designing Li-ion BESS for stationary grid energy storage

Could sand be the next lithium?

By:  Shira Rubin
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A cadre of start-ups are building batteries that can store renewable energy in natural materials such as sand, salt and rock.

(Illustration by Emily Sabens/The Washington Post; iStock)

TAMPERE, Finland — When Russia halted gas and oil exports to Europe following its invasion of Ukraine, hundreds of millions of citizens agonized over the prospect of a winter without enough heating and a summer without enough air conditioning.

But the Kremlin’s wartime strategy to shut the taps on its fossil fuels has coincided with, and also catalyzed, a critical sector for the clean energy transition — batteries made from inexpensive and abundant natural materials that store heat.

The use of sand, salt, heat, air and other elements as energy banks dates back centuries. The walls of ancient Egyptian homes captured solar heat during the day and released it during cool desert nights. Indigenous peoples across the Americas valued adobe — a composite of earth, water, and other organic materials like straw or dung — as a preferred construction material for its ability to do the same.

For modern civilizations whose industrial development has been powered by the combustion of fossil fuels, these materials offer a revolutionary premise: “Nothing is burned,” said Tommi Eronen, chief executive of Polar Night Energy, a Finnish start-up running the world’s first commercial-scale sand battery.

Natural batteries are meant to enable countries to take advantage of prodigious supplies coming from wind turbines and solar panels, when the sun isn’t shining and the wind isn’t blowing. The price of renewables remains below the cost for fossil fuels —especially after a Russian fuel pullback drove prices across Europe to record highs — but the green energy revolution still faces a hugeobstacle: a lack of long-term, cost-efficient renewable storage.

At Polar Night Energy’s facilities in the city of Tampere and the nearby town of Kankaanpää, hulking steel vats hold heaps of sand, heated to around 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit. That stored energyhelps to smooth out power grid spikes and back up district heating networks, keeping homes, offices, saunas and swimming pools warm. The heat keeps flowing, even in remote areas, even as Russian fossil fuel supplies dwindle.

“Sand has almost no limits,” said Ville Kivioja, Polar Night Energy’s lead scientist, speaking over the whirring sound of the substance circulating. “And it’s everywhere.”

A Polar Night Energy sand battery. (Martti Tikka)

How natural batteries work

The sensors and valves that monitor the sand battery’s performance are relatively high-tech, said Kivioja, but, by design, the battery itself is simple.

The sand is trucked in from anywhere nearby — a demolished building site or sand dunes, for example — and costs less than a euro per ton. It is dumped into a giant vat, or “battery,” which is consistently kept hot, or “charged.”

The renewable energy from solar panels and wind turbines is converted into heat by a resistance heater, which also heats the air that swirls through the sand. A fan circulates the flow of heat continuously, until it’s ready to use. Like a boulder in the sun, the sand remains hot even after sundown — except unlike the boulder, the sand never gets cold because it’s insulated by the enormous vat. Even when the battery level is low, the temperature remains above 200 degrees Fahrenheit; when it is full, it can surpass 1,000 degrees.

The sand can hold onto the power for weeks or months at a time — a clear advantage over the lithium ion battery, the giant of today’s battery market, which usually can hold energy for only a number of hours.

Polar Night Energy prefers to use sand or sand-like materials that are not suitable for construction industry. This enables the usage of materials that are locally and commonly available or even considered as waste. (Polar Night Energy)

A natural battery rush

Unlike fossil fuels, which can be easily transported and stored, solar and wind supplies fluctuate. Most of the renewable power that isn’t used immediately is lost.

The solution is storage innovation, many industry experts agree. In addition to their limited capacity, lithium ionbatteries, which are used to power everything from mobile phones to laptops to electric vehicles, tend to fade with every recharge and are highly flammable, resulting in a growing number of deadly fires across the world.

The extraction of cobalt, the lucrative raw material used in lithium ion batteries, also relies on child labor. U.N. agencies have estimated that 40,000 boys and girls work in the industry, with few safety measures and paltry compensation.

These serious environmental and human rights challenges pose a problem for the electric vehicle industry, which requires a huge supply of critical minerals.

So investors are now pouring money into even bigger battery ventures. More than $900 million has been invested in clean storage technologies since 2021, up from $360 million the year before, according to the Long Duration Energy Storage Council, an organization launched after that year’s U.N. climate conference to oversee the world’s decarbonization. The group predicts that by 2040, large-scale,renewable energy storage investments could reach $3 trillion.

That includes efforts to turn natural materials into batteries.Once-obscure start-ups, experimenting with once-humble commodities, are suddenly receiving millions in government and private funding. There’s the multi-megawatt CO2 battery in Sardinia, a rock-based storage system in Tuscany, and a Swiss company that’s moving massive bricks along a 230-foot tall building to store and generate renewable energy. One Danish battery start-up, which stores energy from molten salt, is sketching out plans to deploy power plants in decommissioned coal mines across three continents.

“In some ways, these are some of the oldest technologies we have,” said Kurt Engelbrecht, an associate professor who specializes in energy storage at the Danish Tech University.

He and his colleagues have long been advocating for national decarbonization programs to integrate simple, natural based storage solutions,he saidbut clean batteries only began receiving real market attention as a result of energy crises of recent years.

The war in Ukraine and the subsequent political crisis over Russian oil and gas exports, was the final “tipping point,” Engelbrecht said.

The geopolitical benefits of natural batteries

Natural batteries will help renewables eclipse fossil fuels and free countries from geopolitical challenges, such as Russia’s Ukraine invasion, said Claudio Spadacini, founder of Italian company Energy Dome. The company has been considering selling a version of its CO2-based battery to clients in the United States.

“Renewables are democratic,” he said. “The sun shines everywhere and the wind blows everywhere, and if we can exploit those sources locally, using components that already exist, that will be the missing piece of the puzzle.”

But in order to succeed, natural batteries will need to provide the same kind of steady power as fossil fuels, at scale.Whether that can be achieved remains to be seen, say energy experts.

And the industry may be subject to the same pitfalls that loom over the renewables energy sector at large: Projects will need to be constructed from scratch, and they might only be adopted in developed countries that can afford such experimentation.

Lovschall-Jensen, the CEO of a Danish molten salt-based storage start-up called Hyme, says the challenge will be maintaining the same standards to which the modern world has become accustomed: receiving power, on demand, with the flip of a switch. He believes that natural batteries, though still in their infancy, can serve that goal.

“As a society that’s going away from fossil fuels, we still need something that’s just as flexible,” he said. “There’s really no other option.”

Hubs and spokes: Extending the reach of hydrogen hubs through clean transportation corridors

Written by: Jonathan Lewis and Anna Menke
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Low-emissions hydrogen is a critical component of the climate change solution set, and it is likely to play a significant role in affordably achieving full, economy-wide decarbonization by midcentury. Electrification will achieve much of the decarbonization needed, but more than 80% of final energy use in the U.S. comes from fuels. Many existing fuel uses can be electrified, but electrifying some hard-to-abate sectors of the economy (such as long-haul heavy-duty trucking, marine shipping, and ironmaking) may be either commercially impossible or prohibitively expensive. For these sectors, we will need zero-carbon fuels, namely hydrogen and ammonia, to reach full decarbonization. Accordingly, the International Energy Agency (IEA) projects that the world’s demand for hydrogen could increase by almost 500% between 2020 and 2050.

To catapult the United States on a path towards commercial scale clean hydrogen production, the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) allocated $8 billion for the Department of Energy (DOE) to fund at least four Regional Clean Hydrogen Hubs — or H2 Hubs — across the country. The program is designed to demonstrate viability of new production and end-use technologies for clean hydrogen, and to drastically bring the cost of production down.  

A clean hydrogen hub is a co-located network of infrastructure needed to produce, transport, store, and use clean hydrogen in a functional regional market. The program intends to demonstrate localized production and end use of hydrogen and to create a connected synergistic hydrogen economy across the United States.

In parallel to DOE’s H2 Hubs program, DOE and the Department of Transportation (DOT) are pursuing several additional measures to promote the deployment of hydrogen-fueled trucks and ammonia-powered marine vessels, including the IIJA’s National Alternative Fuel Corridors Program — a piece of the $2.5 billion Charging and Fueling Infrastructure competitive grant program that is designed to support the build-out of clean charging and fueling infrastructure projects along designated alternative fuel corridors of the National Highway System.  

Clean transportation corridors include routes for heavy-duty trucks that run on hydrogen to transport their freight across multiple states, provinces, or even countries, as well as transoceanic shipping routes for vessels that run on ammonia. In the future, clean corridors will also include airline routes serviced by aircraft that are powered by hydrogen or other zero-carbon fuels. Clean transportation corridors will be necessary to turn H2 Hubs from islands into a network, allowing hydrogen and other resources to move between hubs and simultaneously creating a steady demand base for hydrogen to fuel the transportation corridors themselves.  

Moving from competition to connection between H2 Hubs  

CATF has previously written about the elements that individual hubs should prioritize as they develop their proposals to DOE, including low-carbon production pathways, hard-to-decarbonize end uses, the creation of community and local environmental benefits, and long-term economic viability.  

On April 7, 2023, final applications were submitted from hub developers across the country hopeful to receive funding from the Department of Energy. The application process for the DOE Regional Clean Hydrogen Hubs program is long and applicants have recently entered a new phase – the waiting period between application submission and award negotiations and selections. Until this point in the process, the focus and feel between hub hopefuls has been competitive with more than 20 known hub efforts competing for $8B in funding to be spread amongst the 4 to 10 hubs that will be selected by DOE. As award selections and negotiations evolve over the spring, summer, and into the fall, we expect to see more tangible production proposals, off-taker agreements, robust community engagement efforts, and greater collaboration and coordination between the various hub efforts.  

In addition to getting specific within each hub proposal, this phase of the program creates an opportunity for hub developers and the Department of Energy to start thinking collaboratively.  Proactive planning to connect hubs can strengthen individual proposals and improve the likelihood of long-term success for the collective H2 Hubs program. As the Department of Energy’s Clean Hydrogen Liftoff report points out, the development of ‘midstream infrastructure’ will be crucial to getting hydrogen to commercial scale. For the H2 Hubs program, this midstream infrastructure will include hydrogen storage, carbon storage, and transportation infrastructure. The ability to move hydrogen efficiently and safely between hubs — while minimizing hydrogen leaks throughout the process — will be an essential part of the H2 Hubs program. There is the potential to create a national network that simultaneously allows for distribution and hydrogen refueling across the country while bolstering demand for hydrogen and creating benefits for communities.  

The importance of linking clean transportation corridors and H2 Hubs 

Clean transportation corridors have the potential to bolster the economic viability of H2 Hubs and create benefits to communities. To date, Congress and the U.S. DOE have focused primarily on supply-side policies for hydrogen; including the Regional Clean Hydrogen Hubs Program and the Hydrogen Production Tax credit (45V). Recently, focus has begun to shift to demand-side measures that could help give certainty to hub developers that off takers will be there for the hydrogen they produce. DOE and DOT’s investments in and development of clean, hydrogen-fueled transportation corridors will aid in demand-side certainty for H2 Hubs in two ways:  

  1. Clean transportation corridors that support trucks and marine vessels that run on hydrogen or hydrogen-based fuels will broaden the market for low-carbon hydrogen by increasing demand beyond the industrial off takers that are typically located next door to hydrogen production sites. 
  2. The corridors will also expand the geographic reach of H2 Hubs by extending demand for decarbonized hydrogen along spokes — i.e., highways and/or marine shipping routes — that connect each hub region to other cities and ports.     

Additionally, clean transportation corridors have an important role not only in curbing harmful CO2 emissions but also in curbing conventional air pollutants from diesel powered trucking which disproportionately affect environmental justice communities across the country. As H2 Hubs evaluate the benefits they may be able to create for communities near and far, they should consider the transportation routes stemming from their hubs that could transition to be hydrogen-fueled clean transportation corridors and should begin benchmarking the public health benefits that may accrue to communities as a result.  

The first awardees of the DOE and DOT clean transportation corridors grant program were announced in February and include several awardees focused on developing hydrogen-fueled clean transportation corridors:  

  • CALSTART: East Coast Commercial ZEV Corridor along the I-95 freight corridor from Georgia to New Jersey.  
  • Cummins Inc.: MD-HD ZEV Infrastructure Planning with Focus on I-80 Midwest Corridor serving Indiana, Illinois, and Ohio.  
  • GTI Energy: Houston to Los Angeles (H2LA)–I-10 Hydrogen Corridor Project.  
  • Utah State University: Wasatch Front Multi-Modal Corridor Electrification Plan for the Greater Salt Lake City Region.  

CATF sees a key opportunity for H2 Hubs and clean corridors grant recipients to coordinate to develop an interconnected hydrogen network across the United States.  

Imagining hubs connected via clean transportation corridors  

Given that around half of the hydrogen production in the United States currently takes place in the Gulf Coast, let’s assume the example of a hydrogen hub depicted in the graphic above is in the Houston region. If a Houston-based hub were to be selected, there would be at least three and at most nine other hydrogen hubs under development in the United States per the requirements of IIJA’s Regional Clean Hydrogen Hub provision. Meaning, the hypothetical hub in Houston isn’t the only one of its kind, and a hydrogen-powered truck that fuels up in Houston isn’t limited to conducting only local deliveries. There are other places it could carry its freight to, if those places — and the routes along the way — also have hydrogen fueling capacity.  

If a hub in Chicago and the Upper Midwest/Great Lakes region was also selected, the ability to move goods between Houston and Chicago and points in between would improve the use-case for hydrogen trucks purchased in those regions — which in turn would benefit hydrogen truck manufacturers, producers of low-carbon hydrogen, and, most pertinently, air quality and the climate. 

The success of this Houston-Chicago clean hydrogen corridor could be replicated with corridors that connect those regions to other potential hosts of federally backed regional clean hydrogen hubs. Once there are hydrogen production facilities in places like Los Angeles, New Orleans, and New York, along with hydrogen fueling stations along the interstate highways that connect them, the viability of hydrogen-fueled trucks would improve dramatically, the market for low-emissions hydrogen would increase, and both sectors would benefit from growing economies of scale. 

The success of this Houston-Chicago clean hydrogen corridor could be replicated with corridors that connect those regions to other potential hosts of federally backed regional clean hydrogen hubs. Once there are hydrogen production facilities in places like Los Angeles, New Orleans, and New York, along with hydrogen fueling stations along the interstate highways that connect them, the viability of hydrogen-fueled trucks would improve dramatically, the market for low-emissions hydrogen would increase, and both sectors would benefit from growing economies of scale. 

Concluding: How DOE and hub developers can support the development of clean transportation corridors  

Building synergistic linkages between H2 Hubs and clean trucking and shipping corridors requires multi-market investments by fuel providers, fleet owners, and other market participants; support and coordination from federal and state agencies; and constructive input and oversight from communities, NGOs, and universities. 

As discussed above, DOE, DOT, and other U.S. government agencies are working on multiple fronts to implement key provisions in the IIJA and the Inflation Reduction Act that will support the deployment of clean energy production and utilization technologies including hydrogen and zero emissions vehicles. More can be done, however, to ensure that the H2 Hubs and clean corridors programs are well coordinated. The seven grant recipients of DOE and DOT’s program “to accelerate the creation zero-emission vehicle corridors” cover highway systems across the country and meanwhile, nearly every state in the U.S. is represented in the hub projects proposed to DOE’s H2 Hubs program. The extent to which the seven funded corridor efforts match up geographically with regional hydrogen hub efforts is not yet known, because the Regional Clean Hydrogen Hubs program funding recipients will not be announced until later this year. 

may proceed irrespective of DOE funding decisions. Accordingly, CATF is connecting with DOE, hydrogen hub developers, trucking companies, and others to spotlight the opportunities for constructively linking clean corridor development and H2 Hub development. We’re encouraging H2 Hub project developers to look for ways to integrate clean corridor plans into their strategy, in part by involving entities like Cummins, GTI Energy, CALSTART, and Utah State University that received initial clean corridor grants from DOE and plan to support hydrogen refueling infrastructure as part of their projects.    

Given the likely importance of hydrogen to the decarbonization of long-haul heavy-duty trucks, DOE and DOT should account for H2 Hub development when determining when and how to expand the clean corridors program, and the agencies should prioritize the development of hydrogen fueling infrastructure along routes that span between H2 Hub regions. Additionally, H2 Hub applicants and DOE should consider how clean corridors can be leveraged to improve demand-side certainty and to create meaningful benefits for communities. As selections are announced later this fall, CATF looks forward to collaborating with clean corridor grant recipients, H2 Hub awardees, and other stakeholders to support the development of a connected clean hydrogen ecosystem across the United States.  

Pieces That Need To Fall Into Place To Make Green Hydrogen Viable

By:  Steven Carlini, VP of Innovation and Data Center
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In the zero-carbon economy of the future, electricity will become the dominant energy but green hydrogen (and the fuels derived from it) will have a role to play as well. Making green hydrogen viable and abundant will take collaboration, effort, and investment.

Pieces that need to fall into place to make green hydrogen viable

Hydrogen definitely has a role to play in global decarbonization. In the decarbonized world of the future, electricity will become the dominant energy with a 60-70% share in 2050, biofuels will rise, dependence on fossil-based energy will significantly decrease and hydrogen will increase. I want to focus on green hydrogen – derived from water using electrolysis since it is the most promising. In my estimation, green hydrogen will rise between 3 – 10 times the 90 Mt of hydrogen used today by 2050. The 3X – 10X projection goes from a very conservative 270 Mt (3X) to an aggressive 900 Mt (10X). So why is there such a large gap if green hydrogen is the energy source needed for hard-to-abate applications? Mainly because there are 10 significant “pieces” of the puzzle that must come together to produce green hydrogen at the scale needed.

1) Renewable Generation Electricity Capacity – Green hydrogen must be derived through electrolysis which is highly energy intensive. For hydrogen to be green the process must be electrified using a sustainable source (hydro, wind, or solar). How much? The electricity required by 2050 for decarbonized electrification and green hydrogen production of 900 Mt (10X) is estimated to be 130,000 TWh – around 5X today’s total electrical supply of 27,000 TWh. By 2050 using the 900 Mt (10X) green H2 assumption, 30% of electricity use will be dedicated to producing clean hydrogen and its derivatives, such as e-ammonia and e-methanol.

2) Electrolyzer Capacity – Once there is sufficient renewable generation, the capacity of electrolyzer plants needs to match. According to Bloomberg NEF, today’s global electrolyzer capacity of 300 MW must grow to 3000 GW by 2050 to meet clean hydrogen demands of 900 Mt (10X). IEA estimates that every month from January 2030 onwards, three new hydrogen-based industrial plants must be built.

3) Total Cost of green hydrogen – Green hydrogen is fundamentally tied to the cost of renewable electricity, the cost of clean water, CapEx cost of electrolyzer plants, the efficiency of the electrolyzer plant, and finally the cost of storing and transporting the green hydrogen. Today, green hydrogen can cost around €2.5-€5/kg, making it significantly more expensive than the fossil fuel alternatives. Levelized prices need to fall to €1.5/kg by 2050 and possibly sub-€1/kg, to make it competitive with natural gas. However, there are incentives from governments around the world to bring the price down. In the US part of the Inflation Reduction Act created new provisions for clean hydrogen. Under the law, clean hydrogen plants in 2023 can receive a production tax credit up to $3 per kg of hydrogen, for the first 10 years of operation through 2032.

4) Electrolyzer cost – the total installed costs of a GW scale industrial electrolysis plant is currently around 1400 €/kW for Alkaline electrolyzer technology and 1800 €/kW for PEM electrolyzer technology. These need to drop at least 50% by 2050 for green hydrogen to be cost-competitive. However, CapEx improvement plans cannot be a tradeoff resulting in reduced electrolyzer efficiency or durability.

5) Electrolyzer efficiency – Today’s efficiency hovers around 50%. To meet the cost targets, the consensus in the industry is that efficiency needs to continuously improve and be at 75% by 2050. This is a major engineering challenge, plus there is efficiency degradation every year as well.

6) Water Supply – Fresh or clean water must be used in electrolysis. Ocean or salt water (sometimes called seawater) cannot be used. Clean water can be aggregated from collecting rainwater or from a process called desalination. Desalination using reverse osmosis is another very energy-intensive process that also outputs brine (salt-dense water) as a byproduct.

7) Storage – Ideally, electrolysis plants should be located in areas that have abundant renewable electrical power and fresh water. Consumption in the future will likely be places like marinas for ships/vessels and airports for long-haul planes as well as strategic places in the electrical distribution system at the turbine or areas requiring grid stabilization. This means compression, storage, and transportation will be needed. Hydrogen does not degrade over time and can be stored indefinitely. In a gaseous form, it can be stored in ways: pressurized steel tanks and underground reservoirs or salt caverns (for large capacity). Hydrogen can also be liquefied. This would deliver about 75% higher energy density than gaseous hydrogen (stored at 700 bar), But it would waste the equivalent of 25%-30% of the energy contained in the hydrogen to liquefy.

8) Transportation Grid – Moving gaseous hydrogen from the place where it is derived to the place where it will be used is not a straightforward process. There is no piping infrastructure like there is with oil and natural gas pipelines or distribution grids. Because hydrogen is such a small and potentially combustible element, constructing a pipeline is quite challenging.

9) Demand side efficiencies – Just like miles per gallon affects how much fuel a car uses, all applications using electricity or hydrogen need to be made more efficient. A massive effort is required to modernize the existing stock of inefficient assets (buildings, mobility, industrial facilities, and machines, etc.), for higher efficiency or adapt to fun on hydrogen.

10) Funding – In total, investments could amount to almost $15 trillion between now and 2050 – peaking in the late 2030s at around $800 billion per annum1 for 900 Mt (10X). Of this, about $12.5 trillion (85%) relates to the required increase in electricity generation, with only 15% (peaking at almost $150 billion per annum in the late 2030s) relating to an investment in electrolyzer, production facilities, and transport and storage infrastructure. This investment must be coordinated between private-sector action and national and local governments.

The 10 “pieces” of the puzzle that must come together are significant. As with all puzzles, if a single piece is missing, the puzzle is ruined and the 3X scenario would be more likely than the 10X. We have no choice but to put this puzzle together and in this case, we must have all of the pieces in order to meet decarbonization targets and have green hydrogen play its critical role in the effort to halt global warming.

Diversifying a US$200 billion market: The alternatives to Li-ion batteries for grid-scale energy storage

By: Oliver Warren
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The global need for grid-scale energy storage will rise rapidly in the coming years as the transition away from fossil fuels accelerates. Energy storage can help meet the need for reliability and resilience on the grid, but lithium-ion is not the only option, writes Oliver Warren of climate and ESG-focused investment bank and advisory group DAI Magister.

Dubbed the “decade of delivery” by the World Economic Forum (WEF) and the ‘Decade of Action’ by the International Renewable Energy Agency, the 2020s is a crucial decade for the energy transition. However, to realise the full potential of renewables and meet ambitious energy transition objectives, we must have the capacity to store energy more effectively.

Many stakeholders are pinning their long-term storage hopes on lithium-ion (Li-ion) battery storage solutions, with this market expected to grow by almost 20% per year between 2022 and 2023, according to Precedence Research.

But the reality is that, although Li-ion batteries have an important role to play on the road to net zero, this technology is neither robust nor versatile enough to single-handedly fulfil energy storage requirements.

As a result, a diverse range of alternative grid-scale solutions that can deliver an unprecedented expansion in storage capacity are needed to offset our reliance on Li-ion batteries and drive the renewable energy transition.

Ramping up capacity

According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), to decarbonize electricity globally the world’s energy storage capacity must increase by a factor of 40x+ by 2030, reaching a total of 700 GW, or around 25% of global electricity usage (23,000TWh per annum). For comparison, this would be like swelling the size of the UK’s land to that of the USA.

Similar to how “nobody ever gets fired for buying IBM”, lithium-ion holds a similar place in grid scale electrical storage today.  With the 2020s being the decade of energy storage, investors need to focus on alternative storage solutions which may require higher capex up front, but deliver lower long term levelized cost of electricity and longer asset lifetime.

Li-ion batteries, long touted as a vital technology for grid-scale storage, are neither feasible nor sustainable. Cobalt extraction, a fundamental component of Li-ion batteries, is highly toxic and polluting. Limited cobalt supply is a major issue, especially considering the rapidly growing demand for electric car batteries and backup generators. Relying solely on Li-ion technology also leaves us vulnerable to a single supply chain and the availability of access to critical elements e.g., cobalt, in some of the most volatile regions of the world, such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

That isn’t to imply that Li-ion batteries don’t have their place, but they should target fast frequency response rather than load following. Li-ion batteries are best suited to replace gas-fired peaking plants e.g., open cycle gas turbines (OCGTs) and supplement pumped hydro during evening peaks. However, they lack the capacity and duration (more than a few hours of drawdown) to load follow, unlike combined cycle gas turbines (CCGTs), throughout the course of a day.

They are also prone to damage from failing to complete full discharge and recharge cycles although battery analytics companies such as PowerUp and Twaice are trying to solve this problem.

In addition, Li-ion batteries have limited lifespans of up to 10 years before needing replacement. All these factors make Li-ion batteries unviable at grid scale and necessitate the use of alternatives.

Vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technology, which will enable the aggregation of part of the storage capacity of the more than 140 million electric vehicles expected globally by 2030, could bring more than 7TWh in Li-Ion-based additional energy storage that can be drawn from at a moment’s notice, but faces the similar limitations as grid based Lithium Ion batteries.

Viable grid-scale storage alternatives

No single killer application or technology exists to get the job done. Diversification is key with success dependent on the wide-scale adoption of multiple grid-scale energy storage solutions:

Compressed air/gas storage

New compressed air and gas storage technologies offer a novel way of storing energy as compressed air or gas. They can store more energy in a smaller space and for more extended periods than other forms of energy storage like batteries.

Italian start-up Energy Dome has found an unexpected way to store green energy. The company’s ground-breaking long-duration energy storage system compresses CO2 into a liquid and stores it in a massive, pressurised dome. CO₂ has a higher density than air which results in denser energy storage and doesn’t need advanced materials and expensive insulation compared to liquid air at cryogenic temperatures.

Augwind Energy is an Israeli technology company revolutionizing energy storage at scale by storing compressed air underground in large tanks made from unique polymers. The company’s AirBattery solution uses only air and water to store energy safely and cost-effectively at high capacity for long durations.

The solution uses an external energy source, be it from the grid or renewable sources to power water pumps. AirBattery can run endless cycles for decades with no degradation and at a minimal cost.

Cheesecake Energy is a UK-based spinout company founded on thermal and mechanical energy storage research undertaken at the University of Nottingham. The company has developed eTanker, a new energy storage system that stores electricity as heat and compressed air. Electric motors operate compressors that store air and heat at high pressure in storage units to store energy. To produce electricity, the same compressors act as expanders, which turn a generator.

The eTanker is a long-lasting (20+ years) and environmentally friendly energy storage solution built from recyclable raw materials. It can deploy across a variety of static applications such as industry, agriculture, transport, and renewable generation, replacing the need for lithium-ion batteries.

Highview Power also hails from the United Kingdom. The company has developed a large-scale energy storage system for utility and distribution power networks. Highview’s low-cost liquid-air energy storage solution uses the process of cryogenic cooling to store energy for future use.

The system gathers energy from renewable sources like wind and solar and stores it in tanks as liquid air at low temperatures. Liquid air gets heated when required, causing the stored energy to release as a gas. This gas is then used to generate electricity by powering turbines.

Highview plans to raise £400 million (US$483.5 million) to build the world’s first commercial-scale liquid air energy storage (LAES) plant to boost renewable power generation in the UK. Of the £400 million, the company intends to spend £250 million to construct a 30MW storage plant that can store 300MWh of electricity. The remaining £150 million would go towards engineering for a further four sites. Highview already has a 5MW pilot plant in operation in England.

Innovative pumped hydro

Innovative pumped hydro energy storage (PHES) uses renewable energy to pump water from a lower reservoir to an upper reservoir. During periods of high demand, the water releases from the upper reservoir to generate electricity. This type of energy storage is more efficient and cost-effective than traditional pumped hydro and requires less land.

Ocean Grazer, a Dutch start-up, has come up with a unique offshore energy storage system that can deploy at the source of power generation. The Ocean Battery is a pumped hydro system that stores energy from offshore wind farms by pumping water back and forth into flexible bladders where it is stored at different pressures. When there is a demand for power, water rushes back from the bladders to the reservoirs driving multiple hydro turbines to generate electricity.

The Ocean Battery is significantly less expensive to build than existing large-scale lithium-ion battery systems, which require massive platforms made from sea containers. Furthermore, the Ocean Battery has a far longer lifespan, lasting up to one million charging cycles, compared to the 5,000-10,000 offered by lithium-ion batteries.

RheEnergise has developed a ‘High-Density Hydro’ system that stores and releases electricity from hills rather than mountains or dam walls. In contrast to other systems, it uses a non-toxic, high-density additive for its closed-loop pumped storage. This allows it to create 2.5x the energy of traditional pumped storage systems while also having reduced environmental impacts and lower costs.

The High-Density Hydro system has the potential to enable hillsides across the UK to store energy for the country’s electricity supply, considerably expanding the range and output of pumped storage. The company expects to have its first commercial system operational by 2024.

Thermal energy storage

Thermal energy storage works by storing thermal energy as heat, usually in a material such as water, rock, or soil. Heat gets stored in various ways, including using phase-change materials, which absorb and release heat at specific temperatures. The stored heat can then generate electricity. Thermal energy storage can store excess energy from solar, wind, or other renewable sources during peak energy demand hours or when the renewable source is unavailable

Lumenion is a renewable energy storage technology company that provides large-scale energy storage solutions. The company’s TESCORE solution is a high-temperature storage system that stores fluctuating wind and solar PV power as thermal energy with virtually loss-free conversion.

Japanese companies Toshiba, Marubeni and Chubu Electric Power have collaborated with the support of the Japanese Ministry of the Environment to develop a pilot rock-based thermal energy storage system that’s more environmentally friendly and efficient than lithium-ion batteries and hydrogen.

The system has a capacity of 100kWh and can use storage materials such as crushed stone, bricks, molten salt, and concrete. Thus far, it’s claimed that the system can store heat at temperatures above 700°C with a small heat storage tank.

Over the next few years, the goal is to build a larger facility with 500kWh capacity and launch commercial projects based on rock heat storage technology.

Gravity storage

Gravity storage is a form of energy storage that utilizes the force of gravity to store and release potential energy. It works by raising weights, typically made of concrete, bricks, or rocks, and then releasing them to generate electricity when needed.

Energy Vault, based out of Switzerland, is a market leader in gravity storage. The company’s breakthrough technology was inspired by pumped hydro plants that rely on the power of gravity and movement of water to store and discharge electricity.

Their solution employs a proprietary mechanical process and energy management system to store and dispatch electricity. When renewable energy generation is high, the solution harnesses that energy to lift 30-tonne bricks to an elevated height with potential energy stored in the bricks. The system releases kinetic energy back to the grid through the controlled lowering of the bricks under gravitational force to generate electricity.

The management system orchestrates the energy charge/discharge while accounting for various factors, including energy supply and demand volatility, weather elements and other variables.

Storage is a fundamental enabler of the energy transition

Our ability to expand energy storage capacity is one of the most pressing issues that will determine whether this defining ‘transitional’ decade is a success. But we’ll need to invest wisely into the right technologies that get the greatest bang for the buck (in terms of GWh capacity and return on capital) given the limited lifespan of Li-Ion and the decarbonization of the grid.

At a current capital cost of US$2,000 per kW quoted by the US National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) for 6-hour Li-ion battery storage, the 700GW of capacity needed by 2030 equates to around a US$1.5 trillion market over the coming decade, making it worth nearly US$200 billion a year.

Annual investment worldwide into promising energy storage companies is currently running at only US$9 billion in 2022 according to Pitchbook. As the crucial nature of this market becomes more and more clear to investors, there needs to be an exponential increase in investment. Within energy transition, the market for energy storage offers one of the largest ‘blue-ocean’ opportunities for investors available anywhere in the world today.

The Inflation Reduction Act upends hydrogen economics with opportunities, pitfalls

Regulators and policymakers must resist the temptation to overcommit to hydrogen for end uses where electrification will ultimately win out.

By: Dan Esposito and Hadley Tallackson
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This opinion piece is part of a series from Energy Innovation’s policy experts on advancing an affordable, resilient and clean energy system. It was written ​​​​by Dan Esposito, senior policy analyst in Energy Innovation’s Electricity Program, and Hadley Tallackson, a policy analyst in the Electrification Program at Energy Innovation.

The Inflation Reduction Act has upended hydrogen economics, making “green” hydrogen — electrolyzed from renewable electricity and water — suddenly cost-competitive with its natural gas-derived counterpart.

On the supply side, electrolyzers can help utilities integrate renewables into the grid, speeding the clean electricity transition. On the demand side, electrolysis can cost-effectively decarbonize hydrogen production.

But the new hydrogen economics mean regulators and policymakers must be even more careful to avoid directing the fuel to counterproductive applications like heating buildings.

“Gray” hydrogen, which uses the highly-polluting steam methane reformation, or SMR, process, has long been the cheapest production method, trading around $1.50-2.00 per kilogram in the United States. In comparison, electrolyzed hydrogen costs about $4-8/kg without subsidies. The Inflation Reduction Act’s $3/kg incentive for zero-carbon hydrogen makes green hydrogen cheaper than gray, potentially spurring an electrolyzer boom.

To facilitate utilities connecting newly-cheap electrolyzers to the grid, regulators should set tariffs reflecting their flexibility value, empowering more bullish utility wind and solar resource procurement.

However, cheap hydrogen should not encourage its use in applications better served by direct electrification like buildings or transportation. Regulators should remain wary of gas utility proposals to blend hydrogen into pipelines, as they would achieve few emissions reductions before facing costly dead-ends while increasing threats to public safety. State policymakers should also use caution before directing public funds toward hydrogen light-duty refueling stations, as electric vehicles have substantial cost and performance advantages that risk stranding hydrogen vehicle infrastructure.

Instead, industrial consumers should use green hydrogen to decarbonize their gray hydrogen consumption for a cheaper, cleaner product.

The IRA’s clean hydrogen production tax credits

The Inflation Reduction Act offers a 10-year production tax credit for “clean hydrogen” production facilities. Incentives begin at $0.60/kg for hydrogen produced in a manner that captures slightly more than half of SMR process carbon emissions, assuming workforce development and wage requirements are met. The PTC’s value rises to $1.00/kg with higher carbon capture rates before jumping to $3.00/kg for hydrogen produced with nearly no emissions.

The carbon capture rate estimates assume an emissions rate of 9.00 kg CO2e / kg H2 from producing gray hydrogen.
Permission granted by Energy Innovation Policy and Technology.

However, the IRA’s “clean hydrogen” definition includes upstream emissions, including methane leakage from natural gas pipelines. Since methane is a much more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, even small leaks significantly increase the carbon capture rate needed to qualify for different PTC tiers.

This suggests “blue” hydrogen produced from pairing SMR and carbon capture and sequestration technology won’t qualify for the highest PTC value. Even hydrogen produced via pyrolysis — which uses natural gas but has no process emissions — may be knocked into lower tiers with enough methane leakage.

Green hydrogen therefore has a $3/kg subsidy advantage over gray and at least a $2/kg advantage over blue. These subsidies will be lower in practice, as the 10-year PTC will be spread over the facilities’ 15-or-more year lifetimes, but they still shift the hydrogen economics paradigm.

The opportunity: Cleaning today’s gray hydrogen while boosting renewable integration

The Inflation Reduction Act makes clean hydrogen production very cheap, but hydrogen faces costs for transportation, storage and conversion to other compounds. The U.S. also lacks hydrogen-compatible pipelines, storage caverns, refueling stations, and equipment like consumer appliances.

The first best use for clean hydrogen is circumventing these mid- and downstream cost and infrastructure challenges. Namely, clean hydrogen can plug-and-play to replace today’s gray hydrogen production.

For example, ammonia facilities and oil refineries use 90% of U.S. annual hydrogen production. Electrolyzers sited nearby can opportunistically produce clean hydrogen to reduce facilities’ fuel costs and emissions.

The gray hydrogen replacement market is huge — 90% of 2021 U.S. utility-scale wind and solar electricity would be required to produce it all via electrolysis. Green hydrogen also has a 25% to 50% greater GHG emissions reduction impact when replacing gray hydrogen than natural gas.

Non-hydro renewables includes wind, solar, biomass, and geothermal. Data excludes distributed generation.
Permission granted by Energy Innovation Policy and Technology.

This process can speed renewable energy deployment. Grid-connected electrolyzers can draw from renewables when electricity is cheap, helping finance them for power that would otherwise fetch low prices or be curtailed. When electricity prices rise, electrolyzers can ramp down, allowing the renewables to meet demand and keeping hydrogen production cheap.

The combination is a win-win: grid-connected, price-responsive electrolyzers help clean the industrial sector and power grid without committing to extensive new hydrogen-ready infrastructure and appliances. As U.S. renewables deployment accelerates, the demand for complementary green hydrogen may grow apace, including feeding an enormous clean ammonia export market.

The risk: Misallocating public funds for myopic projects

The Inflation Reduction Act’s clean hydrogen PTC is a massive incentive and can make many potential hydrogen end-uses look attractive. However, these propositions are often a mirage.

Clean hydrogen tax credits will reduce electrolyzer capital costs, helping unsubsidized green hydrogen production costs converge toward the cost of renewable electricity. However, since renewable electricity will always be an input to electrolysis, unsubsidized green hydrogen will never be cheaper than direct use of renewable electricity, even though the $3/kg credit is large enough to temporarily distort the market in hydrogen’s favor. By contrast, renewable energy subsidies are helping unsubsidized wind and solar become cheaper than fossil fuel power plants, as these resources’ costs are independent of each other.

Rightmost chart assumes green hydrogen is used for electricity production ($/MWh), but metaphor extends to any use-case where electricity and hydrogen can compete on the same time-scale.
Permission granted by Energy Innovation Policy and Technology.

Despite these dynamics, suddenly cheap hydrogen will amplify the fuel’s hype, inviting proposals for investing in hydrogen infrastructure and compatible end-use equipment. Such actions risk wasting time and money on research or infrastructure that will be underutilized or stranded once Inflation Reduction Act subsidies expire.

For example, gas utility plans to blend hydrogen with natural gas may be cost-effective with the subsidies, but they heighten safety and public health risks and aren’t long-term decarbonization strategies. By comparison, electric appliances like heat pumps and induction stoves use clean electricity approximately four times more efficiently than green hydrogen equivalents.

Other proposals may entail committing public funds to sprawling new infrastructure networks including pipelines and refueling stations to support hydrogen-powered fuel cell vehicles. Yet electric light-duty vehicles hold clear, insurmountable advantages that may be veiled by heavily subsidized hydrogen.

Hydrogen infrastructure proposals will sometimes be worthwhile. For example, geologic caverns for seasonal electricity storage can help clean the last 10% to 20% of the power grid, using green hydrogen to generate electricity when renewables and batteries are unavailable. Hydrogen can also be used as a feedstock or fuel for high-heat industrial processes. But in these cases, hydrogen’s advantage comes from filling a niche that direct electrification cannot, making its inefficiencies irrelevant.

Setting up for success

The IRA’s clean hydrogen tax credits can accelerate a reliable clean electricity transition while beginning to decarbonize industry — if applied judiciously.

Supporting a clean power grid will require incentivizing developers to connect electrolyzers to the grid rather than build standalone projects with co-located renewables, as only the former will allow utilities to benefit from electrolyzers’ flexible demand.

The U.S. Treasury should issue guidance clarifying how electrolytic hydrogen’s carbon intensity will be measured. Its framework should explicitly permit electrolyzers to connect to the grid, using collocated renewables, power purchase agreements, or potentially renewable energy credits to confirm they’re powered by renewables.

Regulators should direct electric utilities to set electrolyzer-specific tariffs, as current industrial tariffs may be mismatched with the flexibility value electrolyzers provide. They should also ease interconnection constraints and build more transmission, both of which can connect co-located renewables and electrolyzer projects to the grid. More grid-connected electrolyzers should then give regulators greater confidence to fast-track utilities’ renewable deployment schedules.

Industry consumers should explore contracts that allow clean hydrogen to replace some or all of their gray hydrogen, reducing costs and providing a cleaner product that may fetch higher prices from climate-conscious purchasers.

However, regulators and policymakers should steel their resolve against temptations to overcommit to hydrogen for end-uses where electrification will ultimately win out.

Research and development should focus on ways clean hydrogen can decarbonize hard-to-electrify sectors like aviation and shipping and boost long-duration electricity storage, rather than focusing on blending hydrogen into natural gas pipelines, using hydrogen for low-heat industrial processes, or designing hydrogen-capable consumer appliances. Limited state funds for commercialization should support electric infrastructure like electric vehicle charging stations and heat pumps, letting private companies take the risk for ventures like hydrogen refueling stations.

Together, these strategies can ensure the Inflation Reduction Act clean hydrogen tax credits maximize their value in reducing GHG emissions without inadvertently leading states and utilities down futile paths.

U.S. Inflation Reduction Act: Impacts on Renewable Energy

New law supports more predictable and consistent policies for solar, wind and other renewable energy and storage developers.


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The signing of the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) — enacted into law on Aug. 16, 2022 — heralds significant and long-term changes for renewable energy development and energy storage installations. The new law represents the single largest climate-related investment by the U.S. government to date, allocating $369 billion (USD) for energy and climate initiatives to help transition the U.S. economy toward more sustainable energy resources.

According to industry estimates, the IRA stands to more than triple U.S. clean energy production, which would result in about 40% of the country’s energy coming from renewable sources such as wind, solar and energy storage by 2030. This would mean an additional 550 gigawatts of electricity generated via renewable sources in less than 10 years.

The IRA’s expected impacts present significant opportunities for renewable energy developers and energy storage companies. Below, we discuss the law’s key effects on the renewable and storage industries, with a special focus on critical technology, software and advisory support for companies launching or expanding their renewable energy projects as the new law takes effect.

More reliable tax credit structures likely to transform renewable energy development

Crucially, the IRA establishes long-term energy tax credit structures to support renewable energy development, giving companies a more stable 10-year window for such incentives versus the previous on-again, off-again incentives that drove “boom and bust” cycles of renewables projects.

Renewables industry trade group American Clean Power reports that for the second quarter of 2022, more than 32 gigawatts of renewable energy projects were delayed, and new project development and installations also fell to their lowest levels since 2019. The group attributes these slumping performance statistics to uncertainty in tax and incentive policies along with transmission challenges and trade restrictions; provisions of the IRA may help reverse this performance trajectory.

“Historically, the U.S. renewables industry has relied on tax credits that required reauthorization from Congress every few years, which created boom-bust cycles and significant challenges in terms of planning for long-term growth,” explained Gillian Howard, global director of sustainable energy and infrastructure at UL Solutions. She added that the IRA establishes a 10-year policy in terms of tax credits for wind, solar and energy storage projects. The new law also provides incentives for green hydrogen, carbon capture, U.S. domestic energy manufacturing and transmission, Howard noted.

“We expect the IRA to both significantly accelerate and increase the deployment of new renewable energy projects in the U.S. over the next decade,” Howard says. “This will be transformational.”

Standalone storage now eligible for tax credits: a long-awaited change and major IRA impact

The use of energy storage has taken on added urgency in recent years as extreme weather and geopolitical issues increasingly challenge energy access and reliability. Projects for energy storage, including batteries and thermal and mechanical storage, have previously been included in investment tax credit programs. Now the IRA extends tax credits for energy storage through 2032. The new law also opens tax credit eligibility to standalone energy storage, which entails storage units constructed and operated independently of larger energy grids.

“Providing an investment tax credit for standalone storage is the single-most important policy change in the IRA — period,” said David Mintzer, energy storage director at UL Solutions. “This one change sets up all of the other energy storage advantages gained from the new law. Those of us in the BESS industry have been waiting for this to happen for more than 10 years, and this is the most significant legislation to accelerate the transition to clean energy and smart grids.”

Mintzer noted that the IRA allows placement of battery energy storage systems (BESSs) where energy demand is highest and removes longstanding requirements that storage systems must be paired to solar sources. Accordingly, key impacts of the new law on energy storage projects in the U.S. will likely include the following near-term impacts:

  • Standalone utilities – The IRA provides more substantial economic incentives for more sites (nodes) that connect to grid networks in support of wholesale energy and additional dispatch services.
  • Standalone distributed generation – More flexible placement of standalone BESSs can support economic arguments for commercial development at sites with inadequate access to larger energy grids.
  • Storage technologies – The IRA’s tax credit provisions for standalone energy storage will prompt research and development and, ultimately, the execution of more and different types of batteries.
  • Banking – Smaller banks and lending organizations may be more likely to finance the construction and development of smaller energy storage systems versus larger and costlier main-grid projects.

“This decoupling of the storage-solar rules will enable BESS sites to be placed where they can provide the best economic returns,” Mintzer explained, adding that battery use will also become more flexible to better support energy grids. Ultimately, Mintzer said, developing and deploying more storage systems will help the U.S. achieve its clean energy goals.

Solar provisions: PTC versus ITC

The IRA includes provisions for 100% production tax credits (PTC) for solar, which transitions to a technology-neutral PTC in 2025. Until the passage of the IRA, solar developers could use the investment tax credit (ITC), which was originally set at 30% of eligible project costs, stepping down over the last few years to 26%, 22% and 0%. The IRA reset the ITC to 30% and provides an option for developers to opt for the PTC instead of the ITC. Rubin Sidhu, director of solar advisory services at UL Solutions, said, “Preliminary analysis shows that for projects with a high net capacity factor (NCF), PTC may be a more favorable option. Further, as solar equipment costs continue to decrease and NCFs continue to go up with better technology, PTC will be more favorable compared to ITC for more and more projects.”

Since the PTC is tied to actual energy generation by a project over 10 years, we expect the investors will be more sensitive to the accuracy of pre-construction solar resource and energy estimates, as well as the ongoing performance of projects.

Tools to support renewable energy development and storage in the IRA era

Launching renewable energy development and storage projects under the auspices of the IRA will require robust tools and technologies in order to manage these projects’ technical, operational and financial components in what may well become a more highly competitive and crowded field.

The degree to which a renewable energy developer will require third-party technologies and advisory partnerships will depend on the firm’s internal resources and commercial goals. Our experience at UL Solutions assessing more than 300 gigawatts worth of renewable energy projects has been that some firms require tools to evaluate and design projects themselves, while other companies seek full-project advisory support. To accommodate a diverse array of technology and advisory needs across the industry, UL Solutions has developed products and services, including:

  • Full energy and asset advisory services.
  • Due diligence support.
  • Testing and certification.
  • Software applications for solar, wind, offshore wind and energy storage projects.

Effective tools for early-stage feasibility and pre-construction assessments are crucial for the long-term viability of renewable energy development projects. UL Solutions provides modeling and optimizing tools for hybrid power projects via our Hybrid Optimization Model for Multiple Energy Resources (HOMER®) line of software, including HOMER Front for technical and economic analysis of utility-scale standalone and hybrid energy systems, HOMER Grid for cost reduction and risk management for grid-connected energy systems, and HOMER Pro for optimizing microgrid design in remote, standalone applications. UL Solutions also supports wind energy assessment projects with our Windnavigator platform for site prospecting and feasibility assessments, Windographer software for wind data analytics and visualization support, and Openwind wind farm modeling and layout design software.

For energy storage system developers, HOMER Front also features tools to design and evaluate battery augmentation plans as well as dispatch strategies, applicable when participating in merchant energy markets or contracting with power purchase agreements.

Conclusion: Reliable tools for a new frontier

Given the magnitude and scope of the IRA, it will take some time for regulatory implementation to play out. Effects of the new law will not be immediate. Over time, the IRA will provide more predictability and certainty in terms of tax credits and related incentives for renewable energy development and lays the groundwork for innovation and expansion of energy storage systems and technologies. Gaining a competitive advantage in this new era for renewables, nonetheless, will require the right software capabilities, third-party advisory support or both, depending on companies’ resources and commercial objectives.

Is Green Hydrogen Energy of the Future?

By: Jennifer L
View the original article here

The global energy market has become even more unstable and uncertain. Add to this the challenges caused by climate change. To meet future demand, sustainable and affordable energy supplies are a must, raising a question “is green hydrogen energy of the future?”

Recently, hydrogen is leading the debate on clean energy transitions. It has been present at industrial scale worldwide, offering a lot of uses but more so in powering things around us.

In the U.S., hydrogen is used by industry for refining petroleum, treating metals, making fertilizers, as well as processing foods.

Petroleum refineries use it to lower the sulfur content of fuels. NASA has also been using liquid hydrogen since the 1950s as a rocket fuel to explore outer space.

This warrants the question: is green hydrogen the energy of the future?

This article will answer the question by discussing hydrogen and its uses, ways of producing it, its different types, and how to make green hydrogen affordable.

Using Hydrogen to Power Things

Hydrogen (H2) is used in a variety of ways to power things up.

Hydrogen fuel cells produce electricity. It reacts with oxygen across an electrochemical cell similar to how a battery works to generate electricity.

But this also produces small amounts of heat and water.

Hydrogen fuel cells are available for various applications.

The small ones can power laptops and cell phones while the large ones can supply power to electric grids, provide emergency power in buildings, and supply electricity to off-grid places.

Burning hydrogen as a power plant fuel is also gaining traction in the U.S. Some plants decided to run on a natural gas-hydrogen fuel mixture in combustion gas turbines.

Examples are the Long Ridge Energy Generation Project in Ohio and the Intermountain Power Agency in Utah.

Finally, there’s also a growing interest in hydrogen use to run vessels. The Energy Policy Act of 1992 considers it an alternative transportation fuel because of its ability to power fuel cells in zero-emission vessels.

A fuel cell can be 2 – 3 times more efficient than an internal combustion engine running on gasoline. Plus, hydrogen can also fuel internal combustion engines.

  • Hydrogen can power cars, supply electricity, and heat homes.

Once produced, H2 generates power in a fuel cell and this emits only water and warm air. Thus, it holds promise for growth in the energy sector.

  • The IEA calculates that hydrogen demand has tripled since the 1970s and projects its continued growth. The volume grew to ~70 million tonnes in 2018 – an increase of 300%.

Such growing demand is due to the need for ammonia and refining activities.

Producing hydrogen is possible using different processes and we’re going to explain the three popular ones.

3 Ways to Produce Hydrogen

The Fischer-Tropsch Process:

The commonly used method in producing hydrogen today is the Fischer-Tropsch (FT) process. Most hydrogen produced in the U.S. (95%) is made this way.

This process converts a mixture of gasses (syngas) into liquid hydrocarbons using a catalyst at the temperature range of 150°C – 300°C

In a typical FT application, coal, natural gas, or biomass produces carbon monoxide and hydrogen – the feedstock for FT. This process step is known as “gasification”.

Under the step called the “water-gas shift reaction”, carbon monoxide reacts with steam through a catalyst. This, in turn, produces CO2 and more H2.

In the last process known as “pressure-swing adsorption”, impurities like CO2 are removed from the gas stream. This then leaves only pure hydrogen.

The FT process is endothermic, which means heat is essential to enable the necessary reaction.

The Haber-Bosch Process:

The Haber-Bosch process is also called the Haber ammonia process. It combines nitrogen (N) from the air with hydrogen from natural gas to make ammonia.

The process works under extremely high pressures and moderately high temperatures to force a chemical reaction.

It also uses a catalyst mostly made of iron with a temperature of over 400°C and a pressure of around 200 atmospheres to fix N and H2 together.

The elements then move out of the catalyst and into industrial reactors where they’re eventually converted into ammonia.

But hydrogen can be obtained onsite through methane steam reforming in combination with the water-gas shift reaction. This step is the same as the FT process, but the input is not carbon but nitrogen.

Both the FT and Haber-Bosch are catalytic processes. It means they require high-temperature and high-pressure reactors to produce H2.

While these two methods are proven technologies, they still emit planet-warming CO2. And that’s because most of the current hydrogen production (115 million tonnes) burns fossil fuels as seen in the chart below.

76% of the hydrogen comes from natural gas and 23% stems from coal. Only ~2% of global hydrogen production is from renewable sources.

This present production emits about 830 million tonnes of CO2 each year.

Thus, the need to shift to a sustainable input and production method is evident. This brings us to a modern, advanced way to produce low-carbon hydrogen or green hydrogen.

The Water Electrolysis Method:

With water as an input, hydrogen features both high efficiency in energy conversion and zero pollution as it emits only water as a byproduct.

That’s possible through the water electrolysis method. It’s a promising pathway to achieve efficiently and zero emission H2 production.

Unlike the FT and Haber-Bosch processes, water electrolysis doesn’t involve CO2.

Instead, it involves the decomposition of water (H2O) into its basic components – hydrogen (H2) and oxygen (O2) via passing electric current. Hence, it’s also referred to as the water-splitting electrolysis method.

Water is the ideal source as it only produces oxygen as a byproduct.

As shown in the figure above, solar energy is used for decomposing water. Then electrolysis converts the stored electrical energy into chemical energy through the catalyst.

The newly created chemical energy can then be used as fuel or transformed back into electricity when needed.

The hydrogen produced via water electrolysis using a renewable source is called green hydrogen, which is touted as the energy for the future.

But there are two other types of hydrogen, distinguished in color labels – blue and grey.

3 Types of Hydrogen: Grey, Blue, and Green

Though the produced H2 have the same molecules, the source of producing it varies.

And so, the different ‘labels’ of hydrogen represented by the three colors reflect the various ways of producing H2.

Processes that use fossil fuels, and thus emit CO2, without utilizing CCS (Carbon Capture & Storage) technology produce grey hydrogen. This type of H2 is the most common available today.

Both FT and Haber-Bosch processes produce grey hydrogen from natural gas like methane without using CCS. Steam methane reforming process is an example.

  • Under the grey hydrogen label are two other colors – brown (using brown coal or lignite) and black (using black coal)

On the other hand, blue hydrogen uses the same process as grey. However, the carbon emitted is captured and stored, making it an eco-friendly option.

But producing blue H2 comes with technical challenges and more costs to deploy CCS. There’s a need for a pipeline to transport the captured CO2 and store it underground.

What makes green hydrogen the most desirable choice for the future is that it’s processed using a low carbon or renewable energy source. Examples are solar, wind, hydropower, and nuclear.

The water electrolysis method is a perfect example of a process that creates green H2.

In a gist, here’s how the three types of hydrogen differ in terms of input (feedstock) and byproduct, as well as their projected costs per kg of production.

Since the process and the byproduct of producing green hydrogen don’t emit CO2, it’s seen as the energy of the future for the world to hit net zero emissions.

That means doing away with fossil fuels or avoiding carbon-intensive processes. And green H2 promises both scenarios.

But the biggest challenge with this green hydrogen is the cost of scaling it up to make it affordable to produce.

Pathways toward Green Hydrogen as the Energy of Future

As projected in the chart above, shifting from grey to green H2 will not likely happen at scale before the 2030s.

The following chart also shows current projections of green hydrogen displacing the blue one.

The projections show an exponential growth for H2. What we can think out of this is that green hydrogen will take a central role in the future global energy mix.

  • While it’s technically feasible, cost-competitiveness of green H2 becomes a precondition for its scale up.

Cheap coal and natural gas are readily available. In fact, producing grey hydrogen can go as low as only US$1/kg for regions with low gas or coal prices such as North America, Russia, and the Middle East.

Estimates claim that’s likely the case until at least 2030. Beyond this period, stricter carbon pricing is necessary to promote the development of green H2.

According to a study, blue hydrogen can’t be cost competitive with natural gas without a carbon price. That is due to the efficiency loss in converting natural gas to hydrogen.

In the meantime, the cost of green hydrogen from water electrolysis is more expensive than both grey and blue.

  • Estimates show it to be in the range of US$2.5 – US$6/kg of H2.

That’s in the near-term but taking a long-term perspective towards 2050, innovations and scale-up can help close the gap in the costs of hydrogen.

For instance, the 10x increase in the average unit size of new electrolyzers used in water electrolysis is a sign of progress in scaling up this method.

Estimates show that the cost of green H2 made through water electrolysis will fall below the cost of blue H2 by 2050.

More importantly, while capital expenditure (CAPEX) will decline, operation expenditure (OPEX) such as fuel is the biggest chunk of producing green hydrogen.

  • Fuel accounts for about 45% – 75% of the production costs.

And the availability of renewable energy sources affects fuel cost, which is the limiting factor right now.

But the decreasing costs for solar and wind generation may result in low-cost supply for green H2. Technology improvements also boost efficiency of electrolyzers.

Plus, as investments in these renewables continue to grow, so does the chance for a lower fuel cost for making green H2.

  • All these increase the commercial viability of green hydrogen production.

While these pathways are crucial for making green hydrogen, the grey and blue hydrogen productions do still have an important role to play.

They can help develop a global supply chain that enables the sustainability and eventuality of green H2.

When it comes to the current flow of capital in the industry, there have been huge investments made into it.

Investments to Scale Up Green H2 Production

Fulfilling the forecast that green hydrogen will be the energy of the future requires not just billions but trillions of dollars by 2050 – about $15 trillion. It means $800 billion of investments per year.

That’s a lot of money! But that’s not impossible with the amount of capital available in the sector today.

Major oil companies have plans to make huge investments that would make green H2 a serious business.

For instance, India’s fastest-growing diversified business portfolio Adani and French oil major TotalEnergies partnered to invest more than $50 billion over the next 10 years to build a green H2 ecosystem.

An initial investment of $5 billion will develop 4 GW of wind and solar capacity. The energy from these sources will power electrolyzers.

Also, there’s another $36 billion investment in the Asian Renewable Energy Hub led by BP Plc. It’s a project that will build solar and wind farms in Western Australia.

The electricity produced will be used to split water molecules into H2 and O2, generating over a million tons of green H2 each year.

Other large oil firms will follow suit such as Shell. The oil giant decided to also invest in the sector. It’s building the Holland Hydrogen I that’s touted to be Europe’s biggest renewable hydrogen plant.

Green Hydrogen as the Energy of the Future

If the current projections of green hydrogen become a reality, it has the potential to be the key investment for the energy transition.