POWER July 2020 - 38

HYDROGEN
At the Dawn of the
Hydrogen Economy
Interest in hydrogen is growing, with demand increasing rapidly. It is clear that the
next significant transformation in the energy transition will be based on the hydrogen
economy, transforming green electrons to green molecules via water electrolysis to
create green hydrogen.
Armin Schnettler, PhD
A
t the moment, 80 million tons of
hydrogen is produced each year,
and that is expected to increase
by about 20 million tons by the end of
the decade. Looking even further ahead,
by 2050, many studies suggest production
will have grown to about 500 million
tons. Today, the majority of that fuel
is consumed near where it is produced,
most often at a chemical plant, but in the
future that demand will be broader with
blue hydrogen forming a bridge to what
will be a green hydrogen future.
Go Green for Success
For a gas that is colorless, tasteless, and
odorless, it is ironic that it is designated as
grey, blue, and green; the color designated
depending on the production method. For
hydrogen to reach its potential as an environmentally
friendly source of energy, it is
vital that the supply chain is made greener.
The current method of producing hydrogen
is from fossil fuels such as methane,
natural gas, or coal. This type of hydrogen,
dubbed grey hydrogen, comprises almost
95% of the quantity produced today, and
it is an emissions-intensive process, with
more than 10 kilograms of CO2
emitted to
produce each kilogram of hydrogen. An
improvement can be made by sequestering
the CO2
that is produced in the process,
thereby delivering blue hydrogen.
But green hydrogen is what Siemens
is striving to achieve. This is hydrogen
that is produced by renewable electricity
powering an electrolyzer to create
hydrogen and oxygen from water. If the
water and power come from sustainable
sources, then the hydrogen is classified
as pure green hydrogen, which is the focus
of Siemens' New Energy Business.
It sees the market for hydrogen migrating
from grey, to blue, and then to green,
with each having its own role utilizing different
transition technologies.
Building Capacity
The key to enabling the potential of the
38
hydrogen economy is a supply chain that
can produce green hydrogen at scale and
at a price that the market will pay. For the
past 10 years that has been a focus at Siemens,
and the company is in the formative
stages of delivering that technology for the
large-scale industrialization of hydrogen.
A big milestone came five years ago
with the launch of Siemens' 1-MW Silyzer
(Figure 1) into the market. Since then,
the company has undertaken commercial
pilots with customers for different
applications. Two years ago, it increased
the portfolio with a 10-MW version. Last
year, together with partners Verbund and
Voestalpine, Siemens built its first installation
at a steel plant in Linz, Austria.
As with all emerging technologies,
the initial cost base was high, with prototypes
and bespoke manufacturing, but
as the technology matures and adoption
increases the costs continue to reduce.
As the production volumes grow, advanced
automation can be introduced
into the manufacturing process along
with leveraging digitalization such as
digital twins and modularization, where
the company uses standardized modular
building blocks that are developed to
serve for customer use cases.
Much like the famous Moore's law for
integrated electronic circuits, the scale of
Siemens' technology is rising year on year,
with an increase in power ratings by a factor
of 10 every four years. The company
is now in the bidding phase for 100-MW
projects, and moving forward it is talking
to partners about installations that would
break the 1 GW barrier. As time moves
on, hydrogen can become as big as wind
and solar, but in terms of maturity (market
and technology), it is 15 to 20 years
behind the more established renewable
technologies. Similar cost reductions as
have been witnessed in the photovoltaic
sector are expected over time.
Show Me the Money
Ultimately, despite the environmental
pressures that every facet of industry
www.powermag.com
1. The heart of Siemens' proton exchange
membrane electrolysis plant is the Silyzer
module. The innovative technology is ideally
suited to exploiting the intermittent generation
of wind and solar power. Courtesy: Siemens
Energy
is under, it will come down to cost. For
it to become mainstream, the hydrogen
economy cannot be based on subsidies;
sustainable markets must be created
and getting the cost right is one of the
first boxes that must be checked.
The present price of industrial-scale
grey hydrogen production is about €2 per
kilogram (kg), sometimes less, depending
on local conditions. When it comes
to using hydrogen as a transportation
fuel, consumers pay about €9 per kg at a
filling station-when they can find one-
and that needs to be reduced by at least
a third to make it attractive.
When it comes to comparative cost,
it makes no sense to compare green hydrogen
to conventional fossil fuel options
that contribute heavily to global greenhouse
gas (GHG) emissions. The mobility
sector is on a path to decarbonize and reduce
its GHG emissions, so clearly fossil
fuels must play a diminishing role.
Today, national climate policy focuses
on emissions from light vehicles. In most
of the Group of 20 (G-20) member economies,
fuel economy or efficiency standards
are used to regulate emissions
from conventional light vehicles, and
18 of the 20 countries have proposed
conventional vehicle bans and/or developed
incentives and targets to accelerate
sales of lower-carbon vehicles. That
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