Suchergebnisse

It is widely accepted that renewable and decarbonised hydrogen will need to play a major role in the EU's future decarbonised energy market. The technological solutions to produce it exist. However, the costs are high and the production capacity is small. How to drive down costs and catalyse sufficient capacity in time for the 2050 decarbonisation deadline? How to ensure that the principles of the internal gas market are retained? How to link the electricity and gas markets? How could ETS accelerate the process? These are some of the questions to answer to design the policy framework. This report is a summary of two online workshops organised by The Florence School of Regulation on the 15th and 22nd of April that shed valuable light on the state of technological development regarding renewable and decarbonised/low-carbon hydrogen. One focused on decarbonised hydrogen produced from natural gas; the other examined the potential of renewable hydrogen. They were both organised in the context of the European Commission's preparations for its 'Energy System Integration' initiative and they aimed to examine and discuss technological development, as well as current and future policy/regulation landscape for hydrogen.

This brief covers novel techniques for clean hydrogen production which primarily involve sodium hydroxide as an essential ingredient to the existing major hydrogen production technologies. Interestingly, sodium hydroxide plays different roles and can act as a catalyst, reactant, promoter or even a precursor. The inclusion of sodium hydroxide makes these processes both kinetically and thermodynamically favorable. In addition possibilities to produce cleaner hydrogen, in terms of carbon emissions, are described. Through modifications of steam methane reformation methods and coal-gasification processes, from fossil as well as non-fossil energy sources, the carbon dioxide emissions of these established ways to produce hydrogen can significantly be reduced. This brief is aimed at those who are interested in expanding their knowledge on novel techniques and materials to produce clean hydrogen and capture carbon dioxide at a large-scale. The detailed thermodynamic analysis, experimental findings and critical analysis of such techniques are well discussed in this brief. Therefore, this book will be of great interest and use to students, engineers and researchers involved in developing the hydrogen economy as well as mitigating carbon dioxide emissions at a large-scale.

Hydrogen represents a versatile energy carrier with net zero end use emissions. Power-to-Liquid (PtL) includes the combination of hydrogen with CO2 to produce liquid fuels and satisfy mostly transport demand. This study assesses the role of these pathways across scenarios that achieve 80–95% CO2 reduction by 2050 (vs. 1990) using the JRC-EU-TIMES model. The gaps in the literature covered in this study include a broader spatial coverage (EU28+) and hydrogen use in all sectors (beyond transport). The large uncertainty in the possible evolution of the energy system has been tackled with an extensive sensitivity analysis. 15 parameters were varied to produce more than 50 scenarios. Results indicate that parameters with the largest influence are the CO2 target, the availability of CO2 underground storage and the biomass potential. Hydrogen demand increases from 7 mtpa today to 20–120 mtpa (2.4–14.4 EJ/yr), mainly used for PtL (up to 70 mtpa), transport (up to 40 mtpa) and industry (25 mtpa). Only when CO2 storage was not possible due to a political ban or social acceptance issues, was electrolysis the main hydrogen production route (90% share) and CO2 use for PtL became attractive. Otherwise, hydrogen was produced through gas reforming with CO2 capture and the preferred CO2 sink was underground. Hydrogen and PtL contribute to energy security and independence allowing to reduce energy related import cost from 420 bln€/yr today to 350 or 50 bln€/yr for 95% CO2 reduction with and without CO2 storage. Development of electrolyzers, fuel cells and fuel synthesis should continue to ensure these technologies are ready when needed. Results from this study should be complemented with studies with higher spatial and temporal resolution. Scenarios with global trading of hydrogen and potential import to the EU were not included.

Fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) powered by proton-exchange membrane fuel cells (PEFC) and fueled by hydrogen, offer the promise of zero emissions with excellent driving range and fast refueling times. FCEVs face several remaining challenges in order to achieve widespread commercialisation. Many of the challenges are addressed in this book.