The opportunity to use hydrogen to help solve major energy problems has never been better. The recent triumphs of electric vehicles and renewable energy technologies have demonstrated the ability of policy and technology innovation to create a worldwide clean energy industry.
With hydrogen-based fuels having the potential to transport energy from renewable sources over long distances, from regions with abundant energy resources to energy-starved areas thousands of kilometers away, hydrogen is emerging as one of the top options for storing energy from renewable sources.
At the UN Climate Conference, COP26, green hydrogen was mentioned in a number of pledges to reduce emissions as a way to decarbonize heavy industry, long-haul freight, shipping, and aviation. Governments and businesses have agreed that hydrogen is a key component of a net-zero economy. In order to lower the price of green hydrogen, the Green Hydrogen Catapult, a United Nations program, stated that it is virtually tripling its objective for green electrolyzers from 25 gigawatts set last year to 45 gigawatts by 2027. The European Commission has adopted a set of legislative recommendations to guarantee energy security for all Europeans and to decarbonize the EU gas market by supporting the adoption of renewable and low-carbon gases, including hydrogen. Japan recently announced it will invest $3.4 billion from its green innovation fund to accelerate research and development and promotion of low-carbon hydrogen, and the United Arab Emirates is also increasing its ambition, with the country's new hydrogen strategy aiming to hold a fourth of the global low-carbon hydrogen market by 2030.
Using hydrogen over the following ten years. When discussing hydrogen technology, the words "grey," "blue," and "green" may be used interchangeably. Everything depends on how it is made. While burning hydrogen produces simply water, the process of producing it can be carbon-intensive. Hydrogen can be grey, blue, green, or occasionally even pink, yellow, or turquoise depending on the production process. But since only green hydrogen can be produced in a way that is climate neutral, it is crucial to achieving net zero by 2050.
We questioned Dr. Emanuele Taibi, Director of the Power Sector Transformation Strategies at the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), about green hydrogen and how it can help us reach net zero emissions. He is currently based at the IRENA Innovation and Technology Center in Bonn, Germany, where he is in charge of helping Member Countries come up with plans for the transformation of the power sector. He is also currently in charge of the work on power system flexibility, hydrogen, and storage as crucial enablers for the energy transition. Dr. Taibi is also a co-curator for the Strategic Intelligence platform of the World Economic Forum, where his group created the hydrogen transformation map. Technology for green hydrogen
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Hydrogen energy alternatives
What are the benefits of energy transition strategies that lead to a hydrogen economy that is "green"? How might we move from the grey hydrogen economy we currently have to a green hydrogen economy?
A crucial component of the energy transition is green hydrogen. It is not the next step right away because we first need to speed up the deployment of renewable electricity to decarbonize current power systems, speed up the electrification of the energy sector to use affordable renewable electricity, and then use green hydrogen to decarbonize hard-to-electrify sectors like heavy industry, shipping, and aviation.
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