(Berlin) - The promotion of hydrogen should be limited to application areas such as steel and ammonia production and long-term energy storage. “Without clear political prioritization, there is a risk of undesirable developments that could jeopardize the sustainable use of hydrogen and at the same time crowd out more efficient, cheaper alternatives,” says an impulse paper “Use hydrogen sparingly.” It was written by the Borderstep Institute for Innovation and Sustainability and the Institute for Ecological Economic Research (IÖW) as part of a joint research project.
Expansion will take decades
“Optimistic studies” that promised widespread availability of hydrogen fueled hopes that the energy source could be used to replace natural gas and oil on a large scale in transport and heat supply. “Although green hydrogen will be an indispensable component in the energy system of the future, its production requires large amounts of green electricity,” says Jens Clausen from the Borderstep Institute. “It will therefore take a while until larger quantities become available.” Both the expansion of the necessary renewable electricity generation and the electrolysis capacities will take decades, the authors explained after comparing various studies on the forecast demand and available offers of green hydrogen in Germany.
Researchers’ assessment of the applications of hydrogen. © Borderstep Institute for Innovation and Sustainability non-profit GmbH
In order to achieve a high level of security of supply at affordable energy prices, “parallel to the development of the hydrogen economy and the rapid expansion of renewable energies, it is particularly necessary to prioritize hydrogen applications,” says Florian Kern from the IÖW. “Given the current state of technology, hydrogen is indispensable in steel production, as long-term energy storage and as a raw material for refineries and the chemical industry in order to achieve climate goals.” In other areas, however, more energy- and price-efficient solutions should be preferred.
Inefficient for heating and transport sectors
Since there are high conversion losses in the production of hydrogen, hydrogen consumes “significantly more primary energy than direct-electric solutions”: a boiler powered by hydrogen would require five times as much energy as a heat pump, and a hydrogen-powered car would require around twice as much green electricity an electric car with a battery. “If politicians still promote hydrogen in such areas, more efficient technologies would be less likely to become established,” complain the authors of the paper.
The recently started regular service of the hydrogen train fleet in Lower Saxony is criticized. This takes place on a short route that was previously operated by diesel locomotives. The more efficient and cheaper solution would have been to use electric battery trains. “It is a huge problem for climate protection when sensible investments are prevented by technology hype,” says Florian Kern: “If it turns out that the forecasts for the availability of green hydrogen were too optimistic, we will have to continue to make do with fossil fuels and miss the climate targets.”
Politics should set priorities
Politicians must therefore “prioritize hydrogen applications and thus create direction and investment security,” says project manager Klaus Fichter from the Borderstep Institute. “We are investigating whether current policies – including state funding programs – make sense and how they influence the strategies of key players.”
The research project “Hydrogen as a panacea?” runs until the end of 2023 and is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research.
The impulse paper “Use hydrogen sparingly” is available free of charge as a PDF (7 pages).
“The hydrogen dilemma: availability, needs and myths”. Jens Clausen (June 2022), Borderstep Institute, free as PDF (82 pages).
Photo above
Researchers are of the opinion that green hydrogen is currently too valuable to be used as an energy source for the transport sector. / © Plug Power Inc.
