It's now two years since I became interested in the investment potential of green hydrogen and added ITM Power to my portfolio. This was followed by several more players and my thoughts on the global potential for hydrogen expanded in this article.
Hydrogen stocks were the flavour of the year in 2020,
some doubling in price and which provided a good boost to my returns for the
year but inevitably they have since fallen back over recent months.
Many countries in Europe already have hydrogen
strategies in place - Germany, France, Spain for example - and billions of
euros have already been pledged to support the expansion of hydrogen. The EU
has a target of 40GW of low carbon hydrogen by 2030 compared to just 5GW in the
UK.
Last weekend, India's Prime Minister, Narendera Modi
placed green hydrogen at the heart of the country's energy security and climate
action. India is the world's third largest emitter of CO2 so an important
development.
China, the world's largest source of greenhouse gas
emissions (28%), is also the world's largest producer of hydrogen. However most
of this is currently produced using coal. It is likely that they will gradually
move towards green hydrogen as they transition to a carbon neutral economy by
2060 ( may become 2050).
UK Hydrogen Strategy
Last year the PM set a target of 5GW for green hydrogen in his 10 point plan for a 'green industrial revolution'. As part of this plan, this week the government has published it's long-awaited hydrogen strategy (link to 60 page pdf)
"Working with industry, our ambition is for 5GW
of low carbon hydrogen production capacity by 2030 for use across the economy.
This could produce hydrogen equivalent to the amount of gas consumed by over 3
million households in the UK each year. This new, low carbon hydrogen could
help provide cleaner energy to power our economy and our everyday lives – from
cookers to distilleries, film shoots to power plants, waste trucks to steel production,
and 40 tonne diggers to the heat in our homes.
Meeting our ambition means rapid ramp up of
production and use of hydrogen over the coming decade. In every country of the
UK, there are ambitious, world-leading projects ready to deploy at scale, saving
carbon and creating jobs". Kwasi Kwarteng, Energy Minister
The Minister travelled north to the new factory of
ITM Power in Sheffield for the launch of this new strategy and the paper
features a case study of ITM and its electrolytic hydrogen production!
The government clearly recognises that hydrogen will play a critical role in our transition to net zero emissions by 2050 and it could provide one third of our energy requirements. What they seem more unclear on is to what extent this will be clean, green hydrogen made from renewables and what role blue hydrogen (made from fossil fuels) will play.
So far as I can make out, hydrogen will not make
much of a contribution to our plans for decarbonisation of the economy by 2030
or even 2035. It seems the emphasis is more for the longer term goal of 2050 by
which time HMG estimates we will need 250 - 460TWh of hydrogen (currently we use around 20TWh mostly from fossil fuels). The target for 2030 is just 5GW.
Homes
Heating accounts for three-quarters of emissions
from our buildings and represents around a quarter of all our CO2 emissions so
this area will be critical on the road to net zero. The vast majority of our
homes and commercial premises are heated by natural gas so it will be a huge
challenge to replace all those gas-fired boilers.
We are still awaiting the Heat/Homes strategy so it will be interesting to see whether HMG clarify the role hydrogen will play in the future compared to heat pumps. For the time being, this strategy talks about a 20% blend of hydrogen and natural gas to 2030 to heat up to 3 million homes.
The range from 2035 is 0 - 45 TWh...i.e unknown! Could be big, could be zero...we could do with some leadership and clear vision in this area.
Industry
The strategy is clearer and shows that hydrogen will play a big part in the
decarbonisation of a range of sectors where electrification is not feasible or
just too costly. Long distant heavy-duty transport, buses, shipping, trains, chemical industry
and high temperature furnaces used in steel for example.
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Already in service in London |
Blue v Green Hydrogen
My impression is that blue+carbon capture is the preferred option for this government, certainly over the coming decade. The lack of emphasis on green hydrogen is a mistake imho. Just last week, academics from a US university warned that using blue hydrogen could produce 20% more emissions than continuing to use natural gas.
Chris Jackson stepped down as chair of the UK
Hydrogen & Fuel Cell Assn. following publication of the government's
strategy saying:
"I believe passionately that I would be
betraying future generations by remaining silent on that fact that blue
hydrogen is at best an expensive distraction, and at worst a lock-in for
continued fossil fuel use that guarantees we will fail to meet our decarbonisation
goals,"
Most green groups as well as the green energy
providers are urging HMG to avoid blue hydrogen and focus on green.
Conclusion
The is a decent first effort in parts but much more work is required to get up to speed. The strategy is
muddled and needs more work to give a clear lead to the private sector and
policy makers in business. In some ways it plays into the hands of the fossil
fuel industry by supporting blue hydrogen and why the support for carbon capture which is far from a
reliable and proven technology at this point?
Mr Muddle
We need more urgency in our ambitions to decarbonise
and 5GW of hydrogen just indicates this government lacks a sense of urgency which
prompted the 'code red' warning on climate from the IPCC last week.
We are late with this half-hearted strategy and risk
losing out commercially to other countries such as Germany with its focus on
green hydrogen, S Korea, US and China who are more far-sighted regarding the
benefits of getting ahead with support for their hydrogen industry.
HMG admits there will not be significant amounts of
hydrogen for some time and it will not be heating our homes in the coming
decade - around 1TWh by 2030 compared to total energy consumption of 435TWh used currently. This tells me
the government have yet to accept that we actually have a climate crisis...they
lack urgency and ambition. We can't afford to dilly-dally on the way forward
for the coming decade, we have a narrow window to get this right, the crisis
demand bold and decisive action from our politicians now.
So, marks out of 10...maybe a 4, must do better! We
have a climate emergency, HMG declared this in parliament in 2019 so it's about
time they started to act like we have an emergency and drop the complacency.