Many questions are floating around about the potential of green hydrogen and its role in the energy transition. To address the doubts that arise, in this piece we will go back to basics and answer all the most frequently asked questions.
1. What can we use hydrogen for?
Currently, more than 70 million tons of hydrogen are exploited in the world annually (IEA). About 95% of this is hydrogen from fossil fuels. The dominant portion is used as an industrial feedstock, including in the chemical, petrochemical, and metallurgical industries.
However, hydrogen is versatile. It is often said to be an energy vector. This means that it is an element for which energy is required for its release. Energy, then, is released during its exploitation. As a result, hydrogen can serve not only as a fuel in the transportation or thermal power sectors but also as an energy store, storing energy for the long term. Hydrogen as energy storage is of particular importance to renewable sources. Using its excess to produce new fuel makes it possible to balance unstable RES, and store and reprocess through fuel cell technology.
2. Is hydrogen always clean?
The combustion of hydrogen itself is not burdened with additional emissions. However, we must keep in mind that hydrogen can be extracted by several processes with different emissions. To standardize, a nomenclature of colors is used. The most common division is between gray, blue, and green hydrogen. However, there are also divisions distinguishing additional colors, such as black, turquoise, and pink. These, correspond to different production methods.
Gray hydrogen – is produced by the steam methane reforming process. The emissivity of the process is estimated at 9 kg CO₂ for every kilogram of H₂ obtained.
Blue hydrogen – hydrogen from fossil fuels, with carbon capture technology (CCS) used in the production process. Depending on the technology, it can eliminate up to 90% of emissions. It is worth noting that this process generates additional energy requirements from powering the plant. The source of this energy is also important in terms of the full life cycle of the fuel.
Green hydrogen – produced by electrolysis of water. If the electricity used for electrolysis comes from renewable sources such as the sun or wind, the resulting hydrogen is carbon-free and is described as zero-emission.
3. Why isn’t hydrogen already an important part of the energy mix?
In recent years, hydrogen has become a key tool of global and European climate strategies. According to the European Commission’s REPower EU plan, as early as 2030 the European economy is expected to consume 20 million tons of hydrogen per year, of which 10 million is to be produced within the Union and the rest imported. Achieving this goal is expected to ensure 40 GW of installed electrolyzer capacity, and thus investment in large-scale renewable hydrogen production.
To date, the main barriers to the widespread use of hydrogen in domestic economies have been the lack of transportation, distribution, and storage infrastructure and the high cost of production, even though electrolyzer prices have fallen by nearly 60% over the past decade. As recently as 2019, it was more than three times more expensive to produce green hydrogen globally than gray hydrogen. The European Commission’s ambitious goal is to get the price of renewable hydrogen below €2 per kilogram. For this, the announced subsidy programs will be essential. Without them, it will be difficult to successfully popularize the new fuel.
