特別会員寄稿

Chile: The hidden champion
for green Hydrogen1
Vicente PINTO
Investment Commissioner for ASIA, Director of Tokyo Office
InvestChile
Vicente Pinto is the Investment Commissioner for Asia at InvestChile where he acts as Director of the Tokyo Office at theEmbassy of Chile to Japan. He previously served as Counsellor for Agriculture & Fishery Affairs, for the Embassy of Chile
to Japan, where he helped ensure market access procedures related to the food industry. He received his degree as anAgronomy Engineer (Universidad De Chile) and an MBA (Universidad Austral De Chile). His expertise is in executive
direction for foreign trade & investment companies, international and local, public and private organizations.

Of all the energy sources currently used in Chile,diesel oil, coal, and natural gas are still the mostimportant. Much, if not all of them are imported. Its
import comes associated with high GHG emission
footprints, which constitutes reason enough to seek
the greatest achievable substitution of these fuels andthereby advance towards the committed reduction incarbon neutrality. Japan is in a quite similar condition.
This dependence on fossil energy fuels iscontrasted in Chile with our own recognized richrenewable energy sources and these energies are fastly
complementing our needs. Solar farms and wind energy
facilities, along with new transmission lines have been
reducing the electric distance of many production
facilities and this rapid deployment has led to have
literally hundreds of fully approved projects for new
PV or wind farms ready to be constructed, accounting
for more that 20 times our actual generation capacity.
This large amount of renewable green energy canbe used to produce green hydrogen (green-H2) at thelowest cost, difficult to match in other parts of the world(see figure 1). This new source has been recognized inJapan and other countries as an essential vector for thetransition towards the new energy economy.
Among many factors, green-H2 basically favors:a) the achievement of the SDGs, specially thoserelated to reducing CO2 emissions to a zero net
balance (decarbonization) in the near future; b) a
greater independence from imported fossil products
and c) creates a new export industry in our country.
Chile is committed to adapt to the impacts ofclimate change, reduce national emissions and reach
total decarbonization by 2050. The achievement ofthese long-term goals (NDCs)2 also embodies efforts
with friend investor countries like Japan, Germany,
USA and other, which are today leading the new
Hydrogen Society. Chile is exploring to set joint
goals based on partnerships on this regard.
The use of green-H2 is very versatile, so it isimportant that it be considered as a source ofimprovement in the living conditions of its inhabitants.
Given the above, the potential activities that integrate
green-H2 are extended to a range of systems: agriculture,aquaculture, local industry, public and private services,

Figure 1: Hydrogen costs from hybrid solar PV and onshore wind systems in the long term

Source: IEA (June 2019), The future of Hydrogen, Report prepared by the IEA for the G20, Japan; Figure 14 / page 49)

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2020.9commerce and in the domestic sphere. It is estimatedthat the sooner a stable supply is reached, storage anddistribution systems in these different uses will trigger
competitive applications sooner than expected.
It is important to connect with the fact thatgreen-H2 has the capacity to act as an efficient means ofstoring, in the short or long term, surplus and intermittent
solar and wind energy, accumulating it when demandis low and using it as required. Many times, it will be in
combination with other fuels or it will definitely be able
to replace them. This means incorporating it into many
processes that are not necessarily going to be electrified
and, consequently, it runs across various industries anddifferent uses: co-generation in thermoelectric plants,
combined use in heavy transport vehicles, in industries
and establishments with an intensive thermalcomponent and finally where the use of hydrogen isessential to the process. All of these activities generatehigh CO2 emissions and many of them significant
contamination by particulate matter (black carbon).
The challenge is to seed active programs as
countermeasure to avoid the effects of these emissions.
Green-H2 is mainly stored and transported ascompressed gas in tanks of various capacities andunder pressure (700 bar). It can also be stored adsorbed
to metal alloys (metalhydrides), as well as various otherchemicals, where hydrogen can be used on demand, at
low pressures and at room temperature. Liquid storage
and transportation can only be done at very low
temperatures (-252.8°C) and high pressure (1,013 bar),technology whose state of art is only used in theaerospace industry however it is under development fortransporting high volumes in specialized ships.
Hydrogen energy storage systems (HES) also
allow it to be used as a fast-response distributed
energy resource for grid regulation and balancing, oreven as a particularly relevant backup in times of loss
capacity as a result of emergencies or catastrophes
such as earthquakes or tsunamis. These systems canaddress needs that last longer than a battery (days oreven weeks), simply by adding more storage tanks,
thus effectively separating power from generation
and usage. These HES also allow integration withgas networks through direct injection into them,which allows the use of existing infrastructure.

If the possibility of using green-H2 directly infuel cells is considered, it is a source to generate
electricity and heat for different uses, requirements
and at different scales. But green-H2 can also be
incorporated as an input for other industrial products
such as ammonia or methanol, the use andapplications of which are widely disseminated indifferent industries in Chile, the world and especiallyin Japan.
In these uses, a special mention must be donewith Ammonia use in Japan. It is a widely recognizedhydrogen carrier and its direct use in Japan can befavored on Chilean supply. Green Ammonia canbecome the most relevant technology to be considered
for deploying green-H2 production in Chile. Japanese
thermal generators and other industries can benefit
from this new source of ammonia, co-firing it directly
can significantly reduce their CO2 emissions andmoreover limit their NOx emissions to levels approvedby the Japanese standards.
This is a key moment to strongly start developing
the green-H2 economy in Chile together with Japan.
Chilean government, together with the private sector
are working to adapt the current legal framework andat the same time developing new ones, and will needto make bold decisions if it green-H2 is to become thegreat clean energy carrier of the future. The integrationof hydrogen in the Energy System for sectors as
diverse as transport, heating, electricity, mobility andindustry requires that future projects have thecollaboration of energy providers, research institutions
and technology manufacturers from both countries.
InvestChile Japan is working to make it happen.
Note 1: I R E NA ( 2 0 1 9 ) , H y d r o g e n : A r e n ewa b l e e n e rg y p e r s p e c t ive ,International Renewable Energy Agency, Abu Dhabi (Hydrogen:
A Renewable Energy Perspective)
Note 2: National Determined Contributions

Meeting Request with InvestChile, Please Contact
JOI

E-mail: bd@joi.or.jp、TEL: 03-5210-3311

Vicente Pinto
Investment Commissioner Japan-Asia, InvestChile
E-mail: vpinto@investchile.gob.cl
URL: https://investchile.gob.cl/japan/

2020.937