Hydrogen and big energy — problems of successful symbiosis

The issues of energy transition, improved sustainability, environmental friendliness and security of energy supply cannot be reduced to the issues of “carbon-free” energy sources and the growing share of renewable energy sources (RES) in the energy mix. Significant growth in renewable energy capacity poses new challenges to the sustainable and reliable operation of energy systems in countries and regions. The new energy system, i.e. the image of future adaptive energy systems, should be based on the symbiosis of traditional and renewable sources, a reasonable combination of centralized and distributed systems, base and peak generation, system possibilities of heat and electricity accumulation in different segments of energy networks and complexes.

The use of hydrogen in the energy sector dates back more than 100 years, and the first industrial prototypes of fuel cells were created more than 70 years ago. However, hydrogen energy has not been widely developed to date. The main obstacle to the use of hydrogen in power generation is that more energy is consumed to produce hydrogen than is generated when it is used. Hydrogen is extracted by electrolysis of water, which requires significant energy input. From an energy point of view the process obviously does not make sense. At the same time, hydrogen can be considered as a storage/storage medium for electricity generated in wind and solar power plants, which are extremely unstable by nature.

The rapid and large-scale development of renewables poses challenges for the electricity system in the European Union. In order to achieve the necessary balance of electricity generation and consumption in the European Union, programmes for the development of storage systems are being implemented. By 2050, it is expected that the contribution of electrolysers to the supply of electricity regimes will be dominant. Electrolysers are projected to have an installed capacity of 537-560 GW and their share is expected to exceed 90% of total electrical storage capacity.

So what is the real aim of this bundling of regime-deficient renewable energy generation and energy inefficient hydrogen generation from electrolysers, in the face of the considerable cost of this strange symbiosis? It is more likely an attempt by the EU to solve the difficult problem of reconciling the increasing instability of renewable energy regimes with distributed energy storage as another energy carrier, including the problem of fossil energy shortages in the EU and the reliability of the operation.

The production of hydrogen by electrolysis could be interesting in terms of balancing electricity production and consumption. The energy consumption of the electrolysers would respond to changes in the balance of the energy system in real time. The emergence of these technologies is not expected before 2030, but this will not change the high energy cost picture of electrolysis.

The growing share of renewables in the grid increases the cost of electricity in the centralised electricity system. The centralised electricity system for industrial consumers is becoming uncompetitive compared to autonomous sources of electricity supply. The current crisis situation in the German centralised power supply system has so far been solved by providing industrial enterprises consuming electricity in the base load area with significant discounts to the electricity price (up to 95% of the established RES support payments and up to 80% discount to the grid tariffs).

Achieving the set strategic goals for the share of RES in electricity generation will require significant investments not only in further construction of RES, but also in capital-intensive projects for modernisation of grid infrastructure, storage systems, intermittent thermal power plants, as well as costs for decommissioning of TPPs and NPPs not designed for daily start-up/shutdown operations.

When the EU economy switches to “green” hydrogen the required installed capacity of WPPs will be 5,655 GW and SPSs 3,658 GW, which is more than 30 times higher than the current values. Assuming a 25-year lifecycle of WES and SES, the annual WES and SES commissioning will exceed 220 GW and 140 GW, respectively. The amount of electricity transmitted will increase 5.7 times from 3,294 TWh to 18,884 TWh per annum, of which the consumption of electrolysers for hydrogen production will be 15,590 TWh (82.5%).

Taking into account that the IQRM of WES and SES in the power system is 2 times lower than that of NPP and TPP, there is a need for a tenfold increase in the capacity of the power grids. It is important to note that the installed capacity of WPPs and SPPs commissioned for commercial operation in 2020 is about 30 GW, which is more than 10 times lower than the required capacity for the transition to “green” hydrogen.

At transition of power system to “green” hydrogen there is a considerable growth of its material intensity as a result of decrease in CUI of its elements and growth of specific material intensity of the main equipment. Under condition of NPP decommissioning such growth of material capacity is estimated in 18,6 times. It is accompanied by considerable change of consumed resources structure. If in materials of TPP and NPP up to 80 % makes a share of concrete, in “hydrogen power systems” a share of carbon plastic, rare and rare-earth materials, platinum, titanium, lithium, cadmium and others grows. Naturally, this will lead to the need to multiply the extraction and processing of these materials.

EU countries are likely to face an acute shortage of space if the required number of wind farms and SES are placed. Given the requirement for a minimum distance between wind farm masts, the area of wind farms would account for up to 38.5% of the European countries’ area. It is important to note that in the Biodiversity Strategy 2030 the European Commission proposes converting at least 30% of European land and seas into effectively managed protected areas, which would significantly reduce the opportunities for wind farms and wind farms.

About 4 cubic kilometres of distilled water per year would be needed to produce the necessary volume of hydrogen through the process of electrolysis of water. At the same time the average consumption of raw water to produce distilled water will exceed the minimum flow of all major EU rivers except for the Danube. And the annual consumption of raw water would exceed the annual flow of the Seine and Tahoe rivers and be comparable with the annual flow of the Elbe and Loire rivers. In addition, there is an urgent need to solve the problems of waste disposal of distilled water production (brines) in an environmentally sound manner.

However, the vast majority of the EU population (Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, England, the Netherlands, Slovakia, Poland, Romania, Spain) — about 450 million people — have a very poor water situation and water flows. The countries and regions with the population 10 times less — about 50 million people (Austria, Finland, Ireland, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, and Switzerland) have relatively favorable situation with water resources.

Under the same conditions (pressures and temperatures), the capacity of hydrogen pipelines (and hydrogen storage capacity) must be 3 times higher than the capacity of gas pipelines (and gas storage capacity) to transmit the same amount of energy. In the case of conversion to hydrogen fuel, 2.5 to 4.2 times more vehicles would be needed to transport the same amount of energy than for fossil fuels (petrol, LNG, natural gas, hard coal, etc.).

How massive could such an exotic niche use of hydrogen be in the real energy systems of large countries? Let’s try to summarise the pros and cons of the hopes of actively using hydrogen in the energy sector in tabular form.

Table 1. Comparison of “hopes” and realities of transition to mass use of hydrogen in energy and industry (based on authors’ calculations)

The limited resources in the EU countries, as well as the irregularity and low predictability of electricity production by wind and solar power plants, river flows, electricity and heat consumption, and fuels, raise serious questions about the feasibility of a full transition to green hydrogen for the economy. At the same time, the hydrogen strategy does not resolve issues with reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in the following sectors: agriculture, waste management, and LULUCF.

Over the last year the need for our country to follow the new fashionable foreign trend of “hydrogen economy” has been actively discussed. Unfortunately, there are only declarative statements without analysis of consequences and impact on competitiveness of domestic goods and services both on external and internal markets. It should be taken into account that, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA) forecast, the transition to “green” hydrogen for the Russian Federation will mean supplying the domestic economy with the most expensive hydrogen in the world.

If we look back a little bit, we will see that since the late 1970s (when Europe began to engage in energy saving due to a sharp rise in oil prices), the USSR actively developed a broad subject of atomic-hydrogen technologies (hydrogen production by means of high-temperature gas-cooled HTGR reactors) under the leadership of academicians V. Legasov, N. Ponomarev-Stepny, E. Velikhov. There is not only production of relatively inexpensive hydrogen by means of HTGR without emission of any combustion products, but the whole line of installations of energy technological combination for metallurgy, petrochemistry, industry of mineral fertilizers, systems of distant heating. Alas, after Chernobyl and the collapse of the country something was forgotten, something was put in the archives and waits for better times. We are sure that the time is approaching for the active return of diverse Soviet developments to real practice.

The issues of adaptation of energy systems and complexes of large and small countries to a set of unprecedented changes and challenges of time are undoubtedly the key issues not only for the survival of civilization, but also for its further balanced development in harmony with nature. Creation of integrated adaptive energy systems of a new generation, organically using different types of sources and energy carriers, is an ambitious scientific and technical task, the solution of which requires concentration of intellectual, financial and other resources in the very near future.

Image: cover of the book “Renewable Energy Sources and Hydrogen in the Energy System: Challenges and Benefits” / S. Beloborodov. S., Gasho E. G., Nenashev A. V. / SPb: Science Intensive Technologies, 2021. — 151 p.

Cover photo: Julian Stratenschulte / DPA