‘Green’ hydrogen offers promise as alternative fuel, but faces significant challenges
Editor's note: This "Beyond the Horizon" story first appeared in the July-August 2022 issue of Offshore magazine. Click here to view the full issue.
By Gareth Burton * ABS
Different nations have adopted different strategies as part of efforts to achieve climate goals. While these roadmaps are defined by a huge range of financial, technical, cultural and political factors, the need to decarbonize large sectors of economies is widely acknowledge as critical.
Indeed, public and private spheres are exploring ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, with one avenue being the exploration and use of alternative fuels.
One of those fuels is green hydrogen. Although far less integrated than fuels such as liquefied petroleum gas or liquefied natural gas because of a need to upgrade and develop the right infrastructure, there is a growing interest in producing hydrogen using renewable energy and water electrolysis. This growing interest led ABS to publish a white paper – “Offshore Production of Green Hydrogen” – exploring the subject in more detail.
The use of renewable energy to power the process is what differentiates green hydrogen from its brown, grey and blue counterparts.
Given the global drive to transition away from reliance on energy produced from fossil fuels, expansion of renewable energy networks and infrastructure presents opportunities for the production of green hydrogen.
According to forecasts produced by the Energy Transitions Commission (ETC), demand for hydrogen (green or otherwise) is expected to increase by between 7% and 9% per year, which equates to 500-800 million tons being consumed by 2050 – this would amount to 15-20% of global energy demand.
Most of this hydrogen demand, the ETC predicts, will be fulfilled by green hydrogen. However, while the promise and growing hype is warranted and welcomed, it is important to note that green hydrogen deployment, especially in the offshore realm, is still nascent.
Several major challenges will need to be overcome. The most significant is sustaining the shift towards renewable energy – only when this has happened can green hydrogen be produced on a meaningful commercial scale. In the case of offshore, this will mean the upscaling of wind installations.
The offshore sector must also overcome challenges relating to size. Hydrogen production facilities on land tend to be large – designs for offshore installations must therefore find ways to maximize limited space.
Other obstacles exist around the viability of storage solutions, as well as the demand from industry to move away from other fuels.
If these issues are overcome, green hydrogen could emerge as a viable alternative fuel that could play an important role in efforts to reach global climate targets.
Indeed, all the offshore green hydrogen production projects are either early in the pilot phase or still in the conceptual phase of design – at least in the near future, onshore hydrogen production is likely to lead the way.
However, there are still some exciting pilot projects and planned developments in the offshore pipeline. Examples include NortH2 situated off the Dutch coast (at Groningen), which aims to produce 4 GW of green hydrogen from offshore wind by 2030, and more than 10 GW by 2040. AquaVentus is another initiative located off the German coast, and seeks to generate green hydrogen from 10 GW of offshore wind energy by 2035. A consortium led by TechnipFMC on the Deep Purple project involves the design and construction of a surface electrolysis system and subsea hydrogen storage infrastructure. It seeks to prove the viability of offshore green hydrogen production and provide a steppingstone to large-scale commercial use.
As can be seen by these examples, most strides are being made in Europe. However, in addition to the above examples, a number of projects have been announced in other regions, namely in Australia, the Middle East, and China.
There are many beneficial use cases. Powering fuel-cell vehicles is one of the most cited applications, with the UK government demonstrating its support for fuel-cell technology.
Another obvious use case is heating, with several nations considering the use of hydrogen in their gas grids as part of plans to decarbonize homes and commercial premises. On top of this, there are many industrial processes reliant on hydrogen gas that could also switch to the green variety – ammonia (fertilizer) and petroleum (refining) are examples.
In 2020, there were 50 GW of green hydrogen projects announced, a trend which increased in 2021 as evidence of investment strategies supporting new projects came to life. Examples include the Singapore-based offshore wind developer Enterprize Energy, which signed an agreement to build a $10-billion wind farm off the coast of Ireland to power a green hydrogen facility. The Uruguayan state-owned oil refinery, ANCAP, launched its H2U Offshore project to produce green hydrogen from renewable sources. In the UK, the independent oil producer Neptune Energy is hosting the PosHYdon project — which aims to validate the integration of offshore wind, natural gas and hydrogen — on its Q13a-A platform in the North Sea, 13km off the coast the Netherlands. Energy majors from Equinor to BP are showing interest in the technology as Europe has set its goal of six gigawatts of installed green hydrogen by 2024, and 40 gigawatts by 2030.
More recently, ABS, Hyundai Heavy Industries, and Korea Shipbuilding and Offshore Engineering announced two landmark joint development projects (JDPs) to develop decarbonization technologies to support global sustainability ambitions. The JDPs address green hydrogen production and offshore carbon capture and storage – two technologies that will be critical to achieving net-zero.
