Hydrogen as a store of energy has been explored for a long time. Given its abundance (in the form of water), and given its potential to be a clean source of power (the only by-product of the hydrogen-oxygen reaction for power generation is pure water), hydrogen presents significant potential as a clean source of energy.
Until 2020, there were insignificant capacities of hydrogen power plants worldwide. But estimates suggest that these could be as high as 25 GW by 2025 and much higher by 2030. Global capacity of electrolysers, which are needed to produce hydrogen from electricity, doubled over the last five years to reach just over 300 MW by mid-2021.
Around 350 projects currently under development could bring global capacity. up to 54 GW by 2030. Another 40 projects accounting for more than 35 GW of capacity are in early stages of deve... Show more...
Hydrogen demand stood at 90 million tons in 2020, practically all for petroleum refining and fertilizer production. Produced by the conventional SMR process, this alone releases about 800 million tons of CO2. If even 10% of hydrogen production just for the current applications come from zero carbon sources, that alone has an abatement potential of 80 million tons.
But the real decarbonization potential of green hydrogen is in the emerging applications of hydrogen.
If green hydrogen were further used to decarbonize hard-to-decarbonize sectors such as steel and cement (which together release 5 billion tons of CO2 per year), and if it were further used to produce chemicals and fuels through the power-to-X construct, its decarbonization potential increases multifold.
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