hydrogen economy

U.S.-based Hyzon Motors has developed a new onboard hydrogen storage system technology capable of reducing the weight and manufacturing cost of commercial vehicles powered by hydrogen fuel cells. Meanwhile, India’s largest oil provider has announced its first green hydrogen project and the Dutch government has awarded a subsidy contract to an offshore green hydrogen demonstrator.

A working group including Italian energy transmission operator Snam has begun a collaboration aimed at using hydrogen to reduce emissions in the glass industry. Elsewhere, Italy-based technology provider Saipem has launched a solution for the production of green hydrogen and German energy company Uniper has signed a cooperation agreement with Oman’s green hydrogen project, Hyport.

The revision of the EU Energy Taxation Directive (ETD) and the Renewable Energy Directive (RED) will also have an impact on the nascent hydrogen economy. The European Commission is currently evaluating options to create a certification system for low-carbon fuels and it may extend the EU-wide certification for renewable fuels to include hydrogen.

According to a new study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, hydrogen-fired gas plants will compete with lithium-ion storage for seasonal storage and their competitiveness will strictly depend on the heat rate of the gas power plants they may replace.

The generator can be combined with batteries, solar panels, or small wind turbines. It is based on a proton exchange membrane fuel cell technology and is claimed to have a minimum lifetime of 5,000 working hours.

InterContinental Energy and CWP Global have proposed the use of 50 GW of solar and wind to annually produce either 3.5 million tons of green hydrogen or 20 million tons of green ammonia. The proposal follows the Australian federal environment minister’s recent rejection of environmental approvals for the 26 GW Asia Renewable Energy Hub.

Furthermore, Texas oil field services company Baker Hughes and engineering, procurement and construction company Samsung Engineering have announced a collaboration with regards to low to zero-carbon projects utilizing carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) and hydrogen technologies.

Developed by U.S. scientists, the Hydrogen Energy Storage Evaluation Tool (HESET) can assess the economic and technical characteristics of individual system components and the modeling of each hydrogen pathway. Furthermore, it can help understand how hydrogen storage can be used for various grid and end-user services.

Moreover, Landsvirkjun, the National Power Company of Iceland, and the Port of Rotterdam have completed a pre-feasability study about exporting green hydrogen from Iceland to Rotterdam and the Swedish Energy Agency has allocated €30 million to Project Air, an industrial concept to produce methanol from a large variety of recovered end-of-life streams and hydrogen from electrolysis.

A 1 MW electrolyzer in the middle of a residential area in Esslingen, southern Germany, is intended to significantly reduce the carbon footprint of its residents. One of the energy sources used in the project is rooftop PV located in the area.