gas

According to the 2020 Global Gas Report by Snam, the International Gas Union and BloombergNEF, public policies are required to support clean hydrogen reach industrial clusters and to facilitate large-scale use. The authors of the report acknowledged the advantages of using wind and solar to directly power electrolysis, but they do not discard the possibility of using gas power with carbon capture storage. The experts of the three parties also identified barriers to remove for future development.

Japanese researchers have developed a new water-splitting technology based on a photoelectrochemical system made with titanium dioxide and cobalt. Cobalt is said to be a solid alternative to noble metals such as gold and silver to improve the light-absorbing properties of titanium dioxide used for water oxidation.

A report from Dutch grid operator TenneT and gas business Gasunie suggests the companies should jointly develop infrastructure after 2030. With hydrogen and synthetic methane in demand, electricity and gas will become increasingly inter-linked. Only seamless integration of the two networks would enable the EU to achieve its net-zero-carbon 2050 plan.

Italian oil and gas company Eni has completed a solar park at its Bhit Gas Field. The plant, which took six months to build, is integrated into the field’s generation system.

Interview: The Energy Charts, developed by the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems (ISE) shows that the switch from coal to gas in Germany reduced CO2 emissions by one third in June. In a European wide transition, Eurogas General Secretary James Watson considers reductions of up to 45% possible by 2030. The gas sector is also willing to make the transition to renewables and decarbonised gases by the middle of the century. In the case of power-to-gas technologies, medium-term cost reductions which are comparable to the experience curve of photovoltaics is possible, Watson explained.

Solar PV has come a long way as a power generation technology. As highlighted in SolarPower Europe’s Global Market Outlook for 2018 to 2022, solar added 98 GW of net generation capacity last year, eclipsing all other forms of electricity generation. But solar needs to do a lot more, and to do it very soon if we want to limit greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and keep global warming to below 1.5°C from pre-industrial levels.

Increasing scrutiny is putting pressure on the world’s biggest oil and gas companies to jump aboard the green energy wagon. While some are making efforts to divest away from conventional energies, figures estimate that just 1.3% of total CAPEX in 2018 from the leading 24 companies will go to alternative energies.

A session at BNEF’s Future of Energy Summit explored how renewables paired with energy storage are successfully competing with new gas plants.

As Energy Storage Europe approaches, pv magazine counts down the five highest-ranked energy storage highlights, selected by our independent jury, that visitors to the exhibition can lay their eyes on. In fifth-place was Electrochaea’s scalable methanation plant: A rather quirky hydrogen-to-methane storage innovation that won plaudits for delivering large-scale power-to-gas capability.

GAIL, which is a state-owned provider of gas, commissioned a 5.76 MW rooftop PV array at its Pata petrochemicals plant in Uttar Pradesh at the end of 2017.