By Will Mathis, Petra Sorge and Josefine
Fokuhl March 31st, 2023
An RWE drilling rig near Walle, Germany.Photographer:
David Hecker/Getty Images
European utilities are pushing to build power plants that would burn
natural gas now and then be switched to burn clean hydrogen down the
road. But the technology they’re depending on wastes energy and opens
the door for accusations of greenwashing.
RWE AG, SSE
Plc andEquinor
ASA say the swap will be easy once green
hydrogen becomes plentiful and cheaper. The concept is so popular that
Germany, Europe’s biggest energy user, is counting on the clean fuel
to help it achieve 100% renewable-power production by 2035.
A significant obstacle to those plans is hydrogen’s
inefficiency. By the time the gas is made, stored and burned to make
electricity again, there’s nearly 70% less energy than at the start —
and the cost has tripled. Plus, there may not be enough clean-tech to
produce that hydrogen, leaving an opening for fossil fuels.
“There’s a huge scope for these ‘hydrogen-ready’ claims
to be greenwashing if there aren’t conditions set,” said Sarah
Brown, an analyst at London-based climate
think tank Ember. “Operators or people who are going to build gas
plants can just come out and say, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, it’ll be
hydrogen-ready,’ without any definition of what that means.”
Governments are steering their economies through the worst energy
crisis in decades with policies to guarantee domestic supply and
double down on low-carbon technologies that help prevent catastrophic
climate change. Many are counting on hydrogen to help them wean off
polluting sources.
Public funding for the hydrogen sector totals $146 billion worldwide
to 2030, according to BloombergNEF. Germany tops the list with $28.6
billion, while the UK has committed $1.9 billion.
Britain’s clean-energy strategy unveiled March
30 was low on fresh funding but proposed rules on defining “hydrogen
readiness.”
Hydrogen Power Could Compete With Gas in the 2030s
in Germany
BloombergNEF forecasts gas and CO2 staying costly,
renewables getting cheaper
Yet with targets to eliminate grid emissions little more than a decade
away, there’s significant risk these natural gas plants won’t
transition to cleaner hydrogen fast enough and instead will become
hindrances to climate goals or stranded assets.
“We’re looking at this very skeptically and concerned,” said
Constantin Zerger, an energy expert for the nonprofit Environmental
Action Germany. “Most of the turbines you buy today aren’t even 100%
hydrogen-capable yet.”
If such conversions don’t happen, there’s no clear
backup plan to cut emissions while keeping the lights on. Europe is
falling behind on goals to expand its renewable fleet, with spending
on wind farms hitting the lowest
level in more than a decade.
Markus KrebberPhotographer: Aaron M. Sprecher/Bloomberg
Countries have shown during this crisis that they’ll go to great
lengths to maintain energy supplies. Come 2035, if plants can burn
hydrogen but don’t have enough of it, there’s a clear opening for
natural gas.
“What we learned in the last year was when you look at sustainability,
affordability and security of supply, when security of supply is in
danger, the rest doesn’t matter,” RWE Chief Executive Officer Markus
Krebber said.
Germany is preparing tenders for another 25 gigawatts
of power
generation and would assemble the
infrastructure for importing liquefied natural gas to fuel the plants.
The government theorizes the sites eventually will run onhydrogen,
which only releases water vapor when burned.
Last year, Germany turned to coal, the most-polluting fossil fuel,
when Russia cut gas shipments after invading Ukraine. Europe’s biggest
economy wants to advance the deadline for closing all coal-fired power
plants to 2030.
A storage tank in the Proton
Exchange Membrane (PEM) electrolyzer, a hydrogen plant that is part of
a green steel project in Salzgitter, Germany.Photographer: Krisztian
Bocsi/Bloomberg
Green hydrogens
main advantage is that it’s a way to store electricity produced by
wind farms and solar parks for use in the future. Unlike batteries
that are only good for a few hours, hydrogen can be kept for months.
That would mean Spanish solar farms could produce fuel all summer and
then ship it so Germany can burn it in winter.
The UK has a goal to have 10 gigawatts of low-carbon hydrogen
production capacity by 2030, with at least half coming from renewables
and the remainder produced from natural gas with carbon capture. Early
demand is set to come from industrial customers.
SSE is working with Equinor on a project in eastern
England that would be the
first step toward a hydrogen-powered future.
The system employs a 35-megawatt electrolyzer to split hydrogen and
water. The hydrogen is then stored in an underground salt cavern until
it’s needed by a small power plant.
Europe Isn't Building Wind Farms Fast Enough to Hit
Its Targets
BloombergNEF forecasts show the EU is on track to
build just two thirds of the wind power capacity in its RepowerEU
plan
UK Energy Secretary Grant Shapps wants to make enough
hydrogen by 2030 to
power London for a year. But Sopna Sury,
RWE’s chief operating officer for hydrogen, said European nations
still have work to do.
“The plans are there, but you need regulation and funding support,”
Sury said in an interview. “You need to have a clear view that the
site where you’re developing such a project can access hydrogen.”
Grant ShappsPhotographer: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg
Ultimately, hydrogen’s higher cost could balance out over time. If
renewables are abundant, electricity will be cheaper when there’s a
lot of wind or sunshine, so that’s a great time to make hydrogen.
In Europe, it likely will be the most economical option for long-term,
zero-carbon storage. Places like the US, which has abundant natural
gas, could use carbon capture to create low-carbon hydrogen or just
burn gas directly, but Europe doesn’t have that option.
“In the future with high shares of renewables, we need
backup,” said Matthias Deutsch, an analyst at Berlin-based think tank Agora
Energiewende. “It’s an expensive option, but
it’s the key technology for long-term seasonal storage.”
