A hydrogen-powered car in Brandenburg, Germany.
Hydrogen is the hottest new energy source being discussed in Brussels at the moment, and a group of eleven European gas infrastructure companies have come out with a plan for how to transport this new fuel across Europe.
Hydrogen gas is produced as a byproduct of industrial processes or power generation, and can then be used as a fuel itself. Because it can be produced as a byproduct of renewable energy generation (so-called ‘green hydrogen’), it holds great promise as a zero-or-low-carbon fuel. It would also be a way to deliver more energy from traditional fossil fuel power generation (so-called ‘brown or grey hydrogen’). Its development, however, remains in very early stages as companies experiment with how to extract, transport and store it.
Last week gas transmission operators from across Europe presented a vision paper for how to create a “European hydrogen backbone” that could deliver this gas across the continent.
European Hydrogen Backbone Initiative 2020
Hydrogen gas can actually use existing gas pipelines, with only minor modifications required. But having a backbone of dedicated hydrogen pipelines would form a reliable basis for transport, they say. The network would in particular connect industrial clusters which can generate and use the hydrogen, as well as offshore wind farms and solar power plants.
The paper concludes that the cost of constructing this network would be “very modest compared to the foreseen size of the hydrogen markets.” According to preliminary estimates, completing the network by 2040 would cost between €27 and €64 billion, getting up to a capacity of transporting more than the annual hydrogen demand od 1,130 TWh expected in Europe by that time.
According to the plan, 6,800 km of pipeline would be completed by 2030 connecting local clusters of hydrogen production, and this would be expanded to connecting population centres by 2035. By 2040, 22,900 km of dedicated hydrogen pipelines would stretch from Sweden to Sicily.
Earlier this month, the European Commission, the EU’s executive branch, unveiled a hydrogen strategy which outlines plans to scale up European green hydrogen to 1 million tonnes by 2024 and 10 million tonnes by 2030. It will also set up EU funding mechanisms through which hydrogen can get money. It also establishes a 'Clean Hydrogen Alliance' tasked with identifying projects to receive EU funding.
But climate campaigners have remained sceptical over the push for hydrogen gas, suspecting it is a way for gas companies to justify the continued construction of gas pipelines which can still be used to transport normal fossil fuel gas.
"The Commission has fallen for the fossil fuel industry's hydrogen hype,” says Tara Connolly, an energy campaigner at Friends of the Earth Europe. “The Commission claims that renewable hydrogen is the future but by leaving the door open to fossil hydrogen, and gifting industry influence through a new Alliance, the Commission is handing a new lifeline to the failing fossil fuel industry.”