Boosting the production of green hydrogen to global standards
The Saudis are focusing a lot on something called "green hydrogen," which is a carbon-free fuel made from water and produced by separating oxygen molecules from hydrogen molecules with electricity generated from renewable resources. It's not just the Saudis who think it will be the next big thing in the energy future. Even though the fuel is barely on people's radar in the United States, there is a green hydrogen rush happening all over the world. Many businesses, investors, governments, and environmentalists believe that hydrogen is a source of energy that could help end the dominance of fossil fuels and slow the rate at which the world is warming.
To meet the requirements of a net-zero world, green hydrogen electrolysers must be scaled up. Understanding the scope of the challenge is the first step. The best chance we have of replacing oil and gas in difficult-to-electrify industrial and transportation applications is green hydrogen. However, hydrogen does not have this luxury, whereas the oil and gas industry has long benefited from the abundance of fossil fuels. Furthermore, the production of green hydrogen necessitates sophisticated technology and renewable energy. However, if we are to create a net-zero world, it must transition from an outsider to a mainstream energy vector within a decade.
As a result, we must rapidly increase production of green hydrogen. Fortunately, electrolysers, which are electricity-powered devices that separate water into hydrogen (H2) and oxygen (O2), are tools for making hydrogen, and their development is rapid. Because they do not require a continuous supply of power, membrane-based electrolysers like proton-exchange membrane (PEM) and anion-exchange membrane (AEM) are likely candidates for widespread adoption. This makes them ideal for working alongside intermittent renewables.
Alkaline water electrolysers that are either currently in the development stage or have commercially available designs that are effective for both types are made by a number of manufacturers. However, electrolyser manufacturers' reports of rapidly expanding order books also known as backlogs raise doubts about our capacity to soon produce on the scale required to establish a zero-carbon economy.
In the same way that solar panels and batteries did, these businesses and others working on new electrolyser designs need to find ways to produce them quickly, cheaply, and in large quantities. Before considering how we will accomplish this, we must first assess the scope of the difficulty we face.
The scale of the challenge of making green hydrogen has led governments and the industry to form partnerships to deploy a large number of electrolyser stacks at large renewable energy sites, probably in the size of shipping containers. They will use this power to transform a stream of water into green hydrogen that can then be shipped or piped to users. We also believe it makes sense to deploy numerous smaller, dispersed operations wherever hydrogen is required, such as at industrial or refuelling sites (such as bus stations and airports).
By 2030, the International Energy Agency estimates that these facilities will have to convert 850 gigawatts (GW) of power into hydrogen in order to keep global warming to less than 1.5 °C. That is an enormous leap.
Hydrogen electrolysers today use the power of 50 large wind turbines to generate renewable energy. We would need 170,000 of these same turbines for hydrogen production by 2030, which is the same number as the world's current wind generation. However, a significant increase in renewable energy seems certain due to substantial investment and decreasing costs worldwide.
When we consider the scope of the problem in terms of the amount of hydrogen that must be produced and transported, we must increase our capacity from filling one truck with green hydrogen every ten minutes around the world to five trucks every second.
Additionally, membrane-based electrolysers will need to expand from a membrane area of three football pitches to one that is 20 times larger than the City of London roughly 6750 football pitches in order to meet the manufacturing and assembly challenges.
This amounts to 52 million membrane electrode assemblies (MEA) that must be assembled into 520 km of electrolyser stacks at a cell area of 1 meter by 1 meter and a depth of 10 mm.
t To achieve our net-zero by 2050 goals, we will need 850 GW of green hydrogen electrolysers by 2030, which is 3000 times more than we currently have. Scaling electrolysers rapidly is one half of that challenge. The other half of the challenge, which is less well-known but equally significant: making electrolytes in large quantities.
However, that, as well, isn't unreasonable. It was recently stated to The Economist that as a result of innovation and economies of scale, green hydrogen will be cost-competitive with hydrogen derived from fossil fuels by the end of this decade. Electrolysers have the potential to become the next commodity technology that disrupts fossil fuels if smart strategic investments and manufacturing decisions are made. This would make electrolysers comparable to solar cells and batteries in terms of cost.
We need to see a significant decrease in the total cost of ownership of electrolysers, which includes the cost of electricity as well as the costs associated with producing and maintaining electrolysers.
However, this is much larger than a few businesses. Too many designs for electrolysers are too complicated to scale quickly. It is necessary for mass production to spread quickly. Designing electrolysers that are simple to manufacture with readily available materials and infrastructure is the fastest route. Some of this may necessitate minor component modifications. Others might necessitate altering fundamental design choices.
An early decision to use cylindrical cells, which resemble AA batteries, contributed to Tesla's rapid growth from a start-up to the most valuable automaker in less than 20 years. These were possible to produce by utilizing the battery manufacturing infrastructure that was already in place and were simpler to produce than the bespoke battery designs that its competitors were using.
That implied it could create its vehicles far faster and more expense really than contenders. It also contributed to its early advantage, which it continues to enjoy today. Electrolysers have a valuable chance to send a similar technique of financially savvy large-scale manufacturing to quickly scale.
