The rise (and rise) of hydrogen

Another week, another bountiful crop of stories covering the rapidly evolving hydrogen sector, which has in recent months has found itself centre-stage in the global energy transition debate for its all-things-to-all-people potential: an ideal yoke-mate to offshore wind – with Shell as last week ended announcing a 10GW project in the Dutch North Sea , a ready-made energy storage medium, and key to greening hard-to-decarbonise sectors such as heating and transport.

From Tasmania, where a 200% renewables share target and big goals for lower-cost green hydrogen production were set, through a BP/Shell-led lobby group arguing for the UK government to invest heavily in hydrogen technology with a view to meeting 100% of the country’s heating needs, to a study outlining how liquid hydrogen could power nearly all container vessels crossing the Pacific ocean , the lightest element in the periodic table is suddenly looking like a global power market heavyweight. Further proof of the growing status in the energy transition came today, as Recharge reported Germany’s government was moving to back ‘green hydrogen’ (from renewable energy) over 'blue’ (from fossil fuels) ahead of a national hydrogen strategy decision next week.

Offshore wind booming worldwide

Market signals last year that the epicentre of the offshore wind power industry was about to shift from Europe to Asia were borne out in 2019 figures from several analyst groups this week, with Wood Mackenzie's latest report showing of the 17GW of turbines ordered for sea-based projects around the world , a whopping 76% came from China, and RCG revealing total investment in Asia Pacific offshore wind came in at $10bn – almost double that spent in Europe, as Recharge identified.

Offshore wind is taking up an increasingly protagonist role in many national energy transition plans, too, with Germany being warned by think-tank Agora Energiewende that it would have to step up its target for sea-based wind power to 25GW to have a chance of meeting its 2030 Energiewende targets, and the UK government announcing floating wind would for the first time be considered for the next round of contract-for-difference auctions as it scrambles to make its 2050 net-zero numbers add up. A cross-industry group in Norway, meanwhile, said offshore wind would s pearhead its oil & gas industry’s transition to “near zero” by 2050.

Among the industry beneficiaries of a market forecast by the International Energy Agency (IEA) to reach a value of $1trn by 2040 , were Siemens Gamesa, which locked down a deal with developer Orsted to supply over 1GW’s worth of its top-of-the-line turbines for two projects in the German North Sea, and rival GE, which in announcing its latest quarterly figures, said it was counting on the “burgeoning” offshore wind market to be a key driver in moving its renewables business’ P&L from red to black.

Carbon capture warming to the task

Once a poster-child for the oil & gas industry’s energy transition – and central to the IEA’s calculus on k eeping global temperatures to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels – carbon capture and storage (CCS ) remains a nascent sector, with are only 20 large-scale projects in operation including one launched last year in the UK North Sea . But several milestones were reached on schemes this week that gave fresh hope to CCS’ momentum-building progress.

Among the key headlines on Recharge: in Australia, BP oil & gas major agreed to invest $13m in a CCS project in South Australia to capture 1.7 million tonnes of CO₂ currently separated from gas at Santos’ Moomba plant; in Norway, the first well has been completed on a giant CCS project that could unlock development of a Europe-wide network of ships and pipelines transporting and locking away vast volumes of liquefied CO₂ on the Norwegian continental shelf; and in the UK, a consortium made up of oil & gas supermajors took over a CCS project designed to decarbonise an industrial cluster in northeast England by building a system to collect CO₂, compress it and inject it in a reservoir under the North Sea.

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Transition

Hydrogen rises, offshore wind swells and CCS captures new markets