Policy & Socio-Economics

Many energy system optimization studies show that hydrogen may be an important part of an optimal decarbonisation mix but such analyses are unable to examine the uncertainties associated with breaking the ‘locked-in’ nature of incumbent systems. Uncertainties around technical learning rates; consumer behaviour; and the strategic interactions of governments automakers and fuel providers are particularly acute. System dynamics and agent-base Read More

Green hydrogen is considered a highly promising vector for deep decarbonisation of energy systems and is forecast to represent 20% of global energy use by 2050. In order to secure access to this resource Japan Germany and South Korea have announced plans to import hydrogen; other major energy consumers are sure to follow. Ammonia a promising hydrogen derivative may enable this energy transport by densifying hydrogen at relatively low cost using Read More

In recent years increasing concerns regarding the energy costs and environmental effects of urban motorcycle use have spurred the development of hydrogen-electric motorcycles in Taiwan. Although gasoline-powered motorcycles produce substantial amounts of exhaust and noise pollution hydrogen-electric motorcycles are highly energy-efficient relatively quiet and produce zero emissions features that suggest their great potential to reduce th Read More

Renewable green fuels (RGF) such as hydrogen are the global energy future. Air pollution is compounded with climate change as the emissions driving both development problems come largely from the same source of fossil fuel burning. As an energy exporter Australian energy export dominates the total energy production and the RGF has become central to the current proposal of Australian government to reach net zero emission. The hydrogen productio Read More

Green Print -  Future Heat for Everyone draws together technical consumer and economic considerations to create a pioneering plan to transition 22 million UK homes to low carbon heat by 2050.Our Green Print underlines the scale of the challenge ahead acknowledging that a mosaic of low carbon heating solutions will be required to meet the needs of individual communities and setting out 12 key steps that can be taken now in order to get us thereT Read More

The liquid hydrogen demand particularly driven by clean energy applications will rise in the near future. As industrial large scale liquefiers will play a major role within the hydrogen supply chain production capacity will have to increase by a multiple of today’s typical sizes. The main goal is to reduce the total cost of ownership for these plants by increasing energy efficiency with innovative and simple process designs optimized in capital expenditure. New co Read More

This study aimed to simulate the sector-coupled energy system of Germany in 2030 with the restriction on CO2 emission levels and to observe how the system evolves with decreasing emissions. Moreover the study presented an analysis of the interconnection between electricity heat and hydrogen and how technologies providing flexibility will react when restricting CO2 emissions levels. This investigation has not yet been carried out with the technolog Read More

This paper presents a day-ahead economic optimization scheduling model for Regional Electricity–Hydrogen Integrated Energy System (REHIES) with high penetration of renewable energies. The electricity–hydrogen coupling devices are modelled with energy storage units and Insensitive Electrical Load (ISEL). The proposed objective function is able to capture the maximum benefits for REHIES in terms of economic benefits and can be summarized as a Read More

In electricity systems mainly supplied with variable renewable electricity (VRE) the variable generation must be balanced. Hydrogen as an energy carrier combined with storage has the ability to shift electricity generation in time and thereby support the electricity system. The aim of this work is to analyze the competitiveness of hydrogen-fueled gas turbines including both open and combined cycles with flexible fuel mixing of hydrogen and biomethane i Read More

Global efforts towards de-carbonization give rise to remarkable energy challenges which include renewable energy penetration increase and intermediate energy carriers for a sustainable transition. In order to reduce the dependence on fossil fuels alternative sources are considered by commodities to satisfy their increasing electricity demand as a consequence of a rise in population and the quantity of residential appliances in forthcoming years. The n Read More

The Global Hydrogen Review is an annual publication by the International Energy Agency that tracks hydrogen production and demand worldwide as well as progress in critical areas such as infrastructure development trade policy regulation investments and innovation.The report is an output of the Clean Energy Ministerial Hydrogen Initiative and is intended to inform energy sector stakeholders on the status and future prospects of hydrogen while also infor Read More

The topic investigated in this article is a comparison contrast and integration effort of European strategies for sustainable development with the evolving market initiatives that are beginning to fuel the fourth industrial revolution. Several regulatory initiatives from continental bodies come into effect to radically change access to finances for business development based on sustainability goals and an analysis of the legislation and trends becomes essential Read More

This article aims to present the potential of energy transition in insular systems for social and economic transition and development when planned and implemented appropriately with the active involvement of local communities. To this end the example of Sifnos Energy Community is examined and presented as a pilot case. It proves that energy transition apart from its obvious energy conservation and climate necessity can provide a strong c Read More

This week's show is the last episode of Season 2! To celebrate we invited our friend and colleague Markus Wilthaner partner at McKinsey & Company to come speak with us. Markus has been a leader in the hydrogen space for the past ten years and has drafted a number of the Hydrogen Council's reports since its founding including the newly released - and highly anticipated - Hydrogen Insights 2021 (link below). In this episode we speak with Markus about th Read More

This study is aimed at a succinct review of practical impacts of grid integration of renewable energy systems on effectiveness of power networks as well as often employed state-of-the-art solution strategies. The renewable energy resources focused on include solar energy wind energy biomass energy and geothermal energy as well as renewable hydrogen/fuel cells which although not classified purely as renewable resources are a famous energy car Read More

Green hydrogen exploitation plays a crucial role in achieving carbon neutrality by 2050. Hydrogen in fact provides a number of key benefits for the energy system due to its integrability with other clean technologies for energy production and consumption. This paper is aimed at presenting the project of recovery of an abandoned industrial area located in central Italy by developing a site for the production of green hydrogen. To this aim the analysis of the t Read More

As the world looks to implement the Energy Transition repurposing existing fossil fuel infrastructure to produce or distribute “clean” energy will be critical. The most promising is using natural gas pipelines for moving hydrogen. This is the cheapest and fastest method of transport and reducing the cost of transporting hydrogen is a key step in making it economically viable. However while there are technical challenges the greater challenge is in the legal arena. T Read More

Hydrogen is often suggested as a universal fuel that can replace fossil fuels. This paper analyses the feasibility of direct hydrogen utilisation in all energy sectors in a 100% renewable energy system for Europe in 2050 using hour-by-hour energy system analysis. Our results show that using hydrogen for heating purposes has high costs and low energy efficiency. Hydrogen for electricity production is beneficial only in limited quantities to restrict biomass co Read More

This paper uses established and recently introduced methods from the applied mathematics and statistics literature to study trends in the end-use sector and the capacity of low-carbon hydrogen projects in recent and upcoming decades. First we examine distributions in plants over time for various end-use sectors and classify them according to metric discrepancy observing clear similarity across all industry sectors. Next we compare the distribution of usage Read More

As result of the adverse effects caused by climate change the nations have decided to accelerate the transition of the energy matrix through the use of non-conventional sources free of polluting emissions. One of these alternatives is green hydrogen. In this context Chile stands out for the exceptional climate that makes it a country with a lot of renewable resources. Such availability of resources gives the nation clear advantages for hydrogen production str Read More

The decarbonisation of heat supply will play a critical role in meeting the emissions reduction target. There is however great uncertainty associated with the achievable levels of heat decarbonisation and the optimal heat technology mix which can have serious implications for the future electricity and gas demand. This work employs an integrated gas electricity and heat supply model to quantify the impacts of heat decarbonisation pathways on the future ele Read More

Low carbon hydrogen can be an excellent source of clean energy which can combat global climate change and poor air quality. Hydrogen based economy can be a great opportunity for a country like Qatar to decarbonize its multiple sectors including transportation shipping global energy markets and industrial sectors. However there are still some barriers to the realization of a hydrogen-based economy which includes large scale hydrogen production co Read More

Hydrogen is an energy carrier in which hopes are placed for an easier achievement of climate neutrality. Together with electrification energy efficiency development and RES hydrogen is expected to enable the ambitious energy goals of the European Green Deal. Hence the aim of the article is to query the development of the hydrogen economy in the Visegrad Group countries (V4). The study considers six diagnostic features: sources of hydrogen pro Read More

Carbon dioxide is an important medium of the global carbon cycle and has the dual properties of realizing the conversion of organic matter in the ecosystem and causing the greenhouse effect. The fixed or available carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is defined as “gray carbon” while the carbon dioxide that cannot be fixed or used and remains in the atmosphere is called “black carbon”. Carbon neutral is the consensus of human development but its impleme Read More

Solar thermal technology can provide the United Arab Emirates and the Middle East region with abundant clean electricity to mitigate the rising levels of carbon dioxide and satisfy future demand. Hydrogen can play a key role in the large-scale application of solar thermal technologies such as concentrated solar plants in the region by storing the surplus electricity and exporting it to needed countries for profit placing the Middle East and the United Ar Read More

A group experts from European research organisations and industry have assessed the state of the art and future needs for materials' R&D for hydrogen and fuel cell technologies. The work was performed as input to the European Commission's roadmapping exercise on materials for the European Strategic Energy Technology Plan. The report summarises the results including key targets identified for medium term (2020/2030) and long term (2050) timescales.

This episode is a whistle-stop tour of the hydrogen world. The team explore why hydrogen is making a resurgence as an energy carrier how decarbonising the existing hydrogen market is a huge opportunity and how fuel cells fit into the story.The podcast can be found on their website

Climate change primarily caused by the greenhouse gases emitted as a result of the consumption of carbon-based fossil fuels is considered one of the biggest challenges that humanity has ever faced. Moreover the Ukrainian crisis in 2022 has complicated the global energy and food status quo more than ever. The permanency of this multifaceted fragility implies the need for increased efforts to have energy independence and requires long-term sol Read More

South Korea has a plan to realize a hydrogen economy and it is essential to establish a main hydrogen pipeline for hydrogen transport. This study develops a cost estimation model applicable to the construction of hydrogen pipelines and conducts an economic analysis to evaluate various scenarios for hydrogen pipeline construction. As a result the cost of modifying an existing natural gas to a hydrogen pipeline is the lowest however there are issues with t Read More

On today’s episode of Everything About Hydrogen we are speaking with Dan Sadler Vice President for UK Low Carbon Solutions at Equinor. Equinor is of course a giant in the global energy sector and is taking a prominent role in the development of the international hydrogen economy with high-profile investments in a number of large-scale production projects in major markets such as the UK. Dan has spent the better part of a decade focused o Read More

For lignite intense regions such as the case of Western Macedonia (WM) the production and utilization of green hydrogen is one of the most viable ways to achieve near zero emissions in sectors like transport chemicals heat and energy production synthetic fuels etc. However the implementation of each technology that is available to a respective sector differs significantly in terms of readiness and the current installation scale of each technology. T Read More

South Korea ranking ninth among the largest energy consumers and seventh in carbon dioxide emissions from 2016 to 2021 faces challenges in energy security and climate change mitigation. The primary challenge lies in transitioning from fossil fuel dependency to a more sustainable and diversified energy portfolio while meeting the growing energy demand for continued economic growth. This necessitates fostering innovation and investment in the Read More

Hard-to-electrify sectors will require renewable fuels to facilitate the green transition in the future. Therefore it is crucial to identify promising production locations while taking into account the local biomass resources variable renewable energy sources and the synergies between sectors. In this study investments and dispatch operations are optimised of a large catalogue of renewable fuel production technologies in the open-source software Sp Read More

Hydrogen is widely considered as the energy carrier of the future but the rather high energy losses for its production are often neglected. The major current hydrogen production technology is steam methane reforming of fossil gas but there is a growing interest in producing hydrogen sustainably from water using electrolysis. This article examines four main hydrogen production chains and two transportation options (pipeline and ship) from North Africa to Eu Read More

Hydrogen is among the energy carriers which are most often considered for bringing about a sustainable energy system. Yet so far hydrogen has not delivered as an energy carrier. The core objective of this paper is to provide a comprehensive analysis of the state-of-the-art and the future prospects of green hydrogen in the European energy system from economic energetic and CO2 emissions point-of-view. The analysis shows that there are som Read More

Is there a place for today’s fossil fuel exporters in a low-carbon future? This study explores trade channels between energy exporters and importers using a novel electricity-hydrogen-steel energy systems model calibrated to Norway a major natural gas producer and Germany a major energy consumer. Under tight emission constraints Norway can supply Germany with electricity (blue) hydrogen or natural gas with re-import of captured CO2. Alternativel Read More

"The Oxford Institute for Energy Studies started researching the role of hydrogen in the energy transition in 2020.  Since then the interest in hydrogen has continued to grow globally across the energy industry. A key research question has been the extent to which clean hydrogen can be scaled up at reasonable cost and whether it can play a significant role in the global energy system. In April 2022 OIES launched a new Hydrogen Research Programme und Read More

The disruption associated with heat decarbonisation has been identified as a key opportunity for hydrogen technologies in temperate countries and regions where established distribution infrastructure and familiarity with natural gas boilers predominate. A key element of such claims is the empirically untested belief that citizens will prefer to minimise disruption and perceive hydrogen to be less disruptive than the network upgrades and retrofit measures Read More

In many industries low-carbon hydrogen will substitute fossil fuels in the course of the transformation to climate neutrality. This paper contributes to understanding this transformation. This paper provides an overview of energy- and emission-intensive industry sectors with great potential to defossilize their production processes with hydrogen. An assessment of future hydrogen demand for various defossilization strategies in Germany that rely on hyd Read More

Hydrogen is receiving increasing attention to decarbonize hard-to-abate sectors such as carbon intensive industries and long-distance transport with the ultimate goal of reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to net-zero. However limited knowledge exists so far on the socio-economic and environmental impacts for countries moving towards green hydrogen. Here we analyse the macroeconomic impacts both direct and indirect in terms of GDP gro Read More

This contribution delves into the transformative effects of the Russian–Ukrainian war on the discourse surrounding German hydrogen. Employing structural topical modeling (STM) on a vast dataset of 2192 newspaper articles spanning from 2019 to 2022 it aims to uncover thematic shifts attributed to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The onset of the war in February 2022 triggered a significant pivot in the discourse shifting it from sustainability and climate-c Read More

The global momentum towards hydrogen has led to various initiatives aimed at harnessing hydrogen’s potential. In particular low-carbon hydrogen is recognized for its crucial role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions across hard-to-abate sectors such as steel cement and heavy-duty transport. This study focuses on the presentation of all hydrogen-related financing initiatives in Italy providing a comprehensive overview of the various activities and th Read More

The report was formally launched on 2nd December in Parliament at a panel debate chaired by Lord Whitty and Oliver Colvile and featured representatives from Government and Industry. The report outlines the case for investment by businesses in the energy efficiency of their buildings and operations and highlights how this could help neutralise the threat to profitability posed by increasing energy bills energy price volatility and an increasing reliance Read More

Together the pathways examined in the report paint a picture of the nationwide transformation getting underway in how we heat our homes and buildings. The report identifies that by 2050 gas used to heat buildings could fall by 75-95% electricity increase from a 10% share today to 30-80% and district heat increase from less than 2% to up to a 40% share. At the same time energy efficiency could help to lower bills and offset the expected growth in ou Read More

"Green hydrogen” i.e. hydrogen produced by splitting water with a carbon “free” source of electricity via electrolysis is set to become the energy vector enabling a deep decarbonisation of society and a virtuous water based energy cycle. If to date water electrolysis is considered to be a scalable technology the source of water to enable a “green hydrogen” economy at scale is questionable. Countries with the highest renewable energy potential like Au Read More

Globally climate change fossil fuel depletion and greenhouse emissions are fundamental problems requiring massive effort from the international scientific community to be addressed and solved. Following the Clean Energy for all Europeans Package (CEP) guidelines the Italian Government has established challenging and tight objectives both on energy and climate matter to be targeted by 2030. Accordingly research activities on different topics are Read More

The feasibility and cost-effectiveness of hydrogen-based microgrids in facilities such as public buildings and small- and medium-sized enterprises provided by photovoltaic (PV) plants and characterized by low electric demand during weekends were investigated in this paper. Starting from the experience of the microgrid being built at the Renewable Energy Facility of Sardegna Ricerche (Italy) which among various energy production and storage systems i Read More

Recently smart energy hubs with hydrogen conversion and storage have received increased attention in the Netherlands. The hydrogen is to be used for vehicle filling stations industrial processes and heating. The scientific problem addressed in this paper is the proper sizing of capacities for renewable energy generation hydrogen conversion and storage in relation to a feasible business case for the energy hub while achieving security of supply. Scenario Read More

This report provides you with the information you need if you have plans to interact with or connect to our gas networks. Our vision is to set the standards that all of our customers love and others aspire to. This means that our long-term plans are shaped by our customers and stakeholders. This annual publication is an important opportunity to share our latest long-term plan and our strategic thinking and seek feedback so we can continue to ada Read More

Policy for Heat: Transforming the System urges Government to implement an ambitious long-term decarbonisation strategy for the heat sector before it’s too late in new inquiry report. The report builds on the work of Part 1 in the Future Heat Series which compared recent decarbonisation pathways and analyses to identify and highlight key policy mechanisms and transitions that are needed in order to decarbonise heat for buildings by 2050. Chaired by Shado Read More