One of the faster moving areas of the renewable energy sector is Hydrogen. We recently took a look at how Wales may become a leader in Europe for clean Hydrogen production, alongside a larger scale test planned in the UK to explore the viability of using clean Hydrogen as an alternative to natural gas.
However, another competitor has joined the race, as Australia could become the world’s largest exporter of the gas.
The country has recently announced a $20B project to build a 15,000-megawatt facility that will generate hydrogen for export and become the world’s leader in building a hydrogen economy. That said, there are some challenges to overcome first.
The first is the transportation and distribution of the resource, as there are currently some challenges with moving it once produced. The current solution is to blend the hydrogen directly with natural gas to make a composite, in order to lower its carbon footprint. This is something that has already successfully been done, as the UK has managed to use the blend in its existing gas network – a 20% volume blend allows customers to use existing appliances without any need for adjustments. Furthermore, a suggestion from the company behind this implementation, is that the 20% blend rolled out across the entire country could save around 6 million tonnes of CO2 emissions annually, the equivalent of taking 2.5 million cars off the road.
The second challenge will be overcoming the cost barriers. Prices have been rapidly falling, as utilising newer technologies and cleaner sources to produce the hydrogen have become more readily available and much more efficient. However, charges to distribute still remain high – there are suggestions that costs for hydrogen need to fall by up to 50% in order to become competitive with fossil fuels. That said, a large scale production plant, such as the one planned for Australia, could be the catalyst for this drop in pricing.
Hydrogen isn’t the only clean alternative in home heating, however. You can explore our Ground Source Heating and Air Source Heat Pumps for both home and business or get in contact with one of our specialists today to explore your other clean energy solution options.
