Hydrogen latest global developments May'21

Latest Hydrogen News from around the World

1. Denmark: Everfuel A/S (Herning, Denmark) has announced plans for the HySynergy Phase II project, including development of a 300-MW electrolyzer and Power-to-X (PtX) facility adjacent to the Fredericia petroleum refinery located in Fredericia, Denmark .
2. Japan: Norwegian ammonia maker Yara and Japanese power company JERA have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) that would give Yara, one of the world’s top fertiliser makers, a footprint in the strategically important Japanese market on the delivery of emissions-free ammonia as fuel for electricity generation in Japan
3. Forecasts: The global hydrogen electrolyser market is forecast to mushroom “one-thousand-fold” by 2040, with some 213.5GW of projects on the slate for development by 2040. See also Green Hydrogen pipeline around the world April’21
4. Chile: U.S. trading company Tramo, Vienna-based Austria Energy Group and Austrian renewable energy developer Oekowind have signed a memorandum of understanding for the production of a hydrogen/green ammonia plant to be developed in Chile.
5. Where the desert meets the sea: Wind turbines and solar PV can operate together symbiotically, and in deserts bordering seas in particular, this relationship is especially “anti-correlated,” meaning the sun shines during the day and the wind blows during the night. This ensures for, say, a green hydrogen production plant, a near 24/7 source of renewable energy in a newly prized location.
6. Asian Centered: “Economic development is going to be very Asian centered, hence the consumption of energy will be very Asian centered and hence then the opportunity to take a lead in deploying clean technologies is there.”
7. Middle East: CCC Director of Business Development, Dori Barakat expressed, “We are very pleased to cooperate with Fusion Fuel towards the building of Green Hydrogen and Ammonia plants and to bring our expertise in construction projects, particularly in the Middle East.”
8. Limited use of Hydrogen ?Researchers at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) concluded that hydrogen should only be used in sectors that “cannot be electrified” as production of the carrier is still “too inefficient, costly and [its] availability too uncertain, to broadly replace fossil fuels” in running cars or heating homes.
9. Demand of H2 for Net-zero emissions by 2050 will require about 306 million tonnes of green hydrogen derived from renewable energy each year, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA) report, Net Zero by 2050 – A Roadmap for the Global Energy Sector.
10. Double whammy of inefficiency: It takes a lot of electricity to split water molecules. As a result, using hydrogen-based fuels in a particular application requires 2-14 times as much electricity as direct electrification, the researchers report in Nature Climate Change. The problem: a double whammy of inefficiency. Energy is lost converting electricity to hydrogen-based fuels, and combustion engines aren’t as energy efficient as electric ones.
11. Hydrogen in North-Western Europe: IEA Report
12. $1.50/kilogram of Green H2: The Green Hydrogen Coalition, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, and other partners launched HyDeal LA, an initiative to achieve at-scale green hydrogen procurement at $1.50/kilogram in the Los Angeles Basin by 2030.
13. Denmark: Ørsted has started the onsite construction work on the H2RES project in Copenhagen. H2RES will have a capacity of 2 MW and will be situated on Ørsted’s premises on Avedøre Holme in Copenhagen.
14. Hydrogen Economy: In this 3 part series, the key concepts and applications underpinning “the hydrogen economy” are given and analysis of Asia-Pacific.
15. Mitsubishi, Iberdrola: The companies will develop green hydrogen production facilities, battery storage systems, and electrified heat production facilities to promote carbon-neutral industries in the short and medium term.
16. Cummins:  US-based power company Cummins is to build a hydrogen electrolyser gigafactory in Spain in partnership with Iberdrola. The €50m ($61m) proton exchange membrane (PEM) electrolyser plant will start up in 2023 in the central region of Castilla-La Mancha, near Madrid, as a 500MW-a-year facility, “and will be scalable to more than 1GW/year”, according to Cummins.
17. Panasonic: Panasonic proposes a solution that combines pure hydrogen fuel cell generators, photovoltaic generators, and storage batteries. To demonstrate this solution, Panasonic will build a large facility at its Kusatsu site in Shiga Prefecture, which is equipped with an in-house power generation system that combines pure hydrogen fuel cell generators (500 kW) and photovoltaic generators (approx. 570 kW), as well as lithium-ion storage batteries (approx. 1.1 MWh) for storing surplus power.
18. Eni: In Italy, Toyota and Eni have begun collaborating in order to speed up the spread of hydrogen fuelling stations and cars. The first phase of the project involves opening a hydrogen refuelling point at two new Eni service stations in San Donato Milanese and Venice. The hydrogen available at these stations will be zero-emission, as it will be self-produced at the station by electrolysis of water using renewable energy.
19. RWE: Utility RWE is involved in three of the shortlisted projects, among them the GET H2 initiative that involves a 300MW electrolyser at Lingen and a 135 kilometre-long hydrogen pipeline to a steel plant in Salzgitter. Another RWE projects on the list is the the AquaPrimus 2 sub-project of the giant AquaVentus plan. It targets to produce green hydrogen from up to 10GW of offshore wind and ship it via pipelines to the German mainland.
20. ESB: Irish utility ESB is taking first steps in exploring the potential for industrial-scale storage of green hydrogen in vast, emptied oil & gas structures beneath the seabed offshore, with the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with subsurface energy asset developer dCarbonX to build first projects.
21. Sinopec: Chinese state-controlled oil giant Sinopec said it expects to launch its first green hydrogen project, a zero-carbon fuel generated from renewable energy sources, in the Inner Mongolia region in 2022. The company, China’s largest hydrogen producer, also said it will focus on fossil fuel-based hydrogen output over the next five years and set up 1,000 hydrogen filling stations across the country, as part of its goal to be carbon neutral by 2050.