Hydrogen latest global developments June'21

Latest Hydrogen News from around the World

1. Korea: SK Group, has made a strategic investment in an American turquoise hydrogen company, Monolith Materials,  so that it can diversify its hydrogen portfolio. Turquoise hydrogen that sits somewhat between blue and green hydrogen uses methane as a feedstock, but the process is driven by heat produced with electricity instead of fossil fuels.
2. California, US: Waste-to-hydrogen company SGH2 Energy will supply 3,850 tonnes of green H₂ (produced from biogenic waste and biomass) annually to southern California under a ten-year contract.
3. Denmark: Green Hydrogen Systems, which makes electrolysers to produce green hydrogen, said it plans to raise around 1 billion Danish crowns ($164 million) in an initial public offering (IPO) in Copenhagen.
4. Germany: 475 km pipeline project is one of 62 large-scale hydrogen projects selected by Germany’s Federal Ministry of Economics and the Federal Ministry of Transport, as part of its €8bn Important Projects of Common European Interest (IPCEI Hydrogen) programme. The plan aims to develop 2GW of electrolysis capacity and 1,700km of hydrogen pipelines by 2030.
5. Norway:Norway is betting on hydrogen and offshore wind for its energy transition but will continue to extract oil and gas until 2050. “We don’t think that we should stop producing oil and gas now and leave it for Russia or Qatar to supply, but we need to understand that the demand will go down… The main thing is to hit the market right and not end up with stranded assets,” Espen Barth Eide said.
6. Hydrogen Cars: BMW said on testing of BMW i Hydrogen Next car, “hydrogen fuel cell tech have long term potential to supplement internal combustion engines, plug-in hybrid systems and battery-electric vehicles and become an attractive alternative to battery-electric drive trains – especially for customers who do not have their own access to electric charging infrastructure or who frequently drive long distances.”
7. Australia: Asian Renewable Energy Hub (AREH) project, located in the Western Australia’s Pilbara region, designed to initially build 15 gigawatts (GW) of renewable energy capacity, eventually to be expanded to 26 GW and produce green hydrogen and ammonia for export was rejected due to unacceptable impacts on internationally recognised wetlands and migratory bird species.
8. Buoyancy Energy Storage Technology (BEST): Gravitational energy storage based on buoyancy, can be used in locations with deep sea floors and applied to both the storage of offshore wind power and compressed hydrogen. The proposed system uses air or hydrogen as compression gases to fill the recipient, which can be shaped as a series of balloons or tanks.
9. Role of Oil and Gas ? Michael Liebreich, the founder of BloombergNEF is strongly against using clean hydrogen in certain sectors where there are cheaper and more efficient electric solutions, such as cars and domestic heating — in stark contrast to elements within the oil & gas sector that are spending tens of millions of euros on lobbying for such uses. Do look up Liebreich’s Hydrogen ladder in the references.
10. Kazakhstan: German project developer Svevind Energy and Kazakh Invest, a state-owned company have signed a memorandum of understanding to install wind and solar farms with a total capacity of 45 GW in mainly steppe areas in western and central Kazakhstan. “The electricity will feed 30 GW of electrolyzers to produce about three million tons of green hydrogen every year.
11. Plasma Electrolysers: Melbourne-based Hydrogen Systems Australia (HSA) says that today’s PEM (proton exchange membrane) electrolysers produce hydrogen at a levelised cost of about $5-7 per kilogram, while its new plasma electrolysers would produce H₂ for $2/kg by 2024 (based on a power price of $35/MWh when operating for 12 hours a day).