A march towards cleaner energy in the Middle East — Green Hydrogen
By: Rakesh Nair
Tags: Hydrogen, Neom, Renewables, Middle East, Saudi

Imagine you reside in a very city with almost 1,000,000 people, complete with flying taxis, robots for servants, and has almost no pollution. Sounds quite alien, doesn’t it? But, that’s exactly what’s being planned at the sting of the Arabian desert near the sea. This futuristic city called Neom with a building cost of $500 billion dollars, is already underway. US-based company Air Products and Chemicals has already been acting for the last four years to create a plant that may not only fuel this city but will sell the fuel to the planet. And no the fuel isn’t Oil instead it’s something called Green Hydrogen that’s set to rework the energy economics round the world.

What is Green Hydrogen?

Green Hydrogen is the production of hydrogen from the electrolysis of water. The hydrogen produced would be freed from carbon because the energy source, to power the electrolysis, would be from wind and solar. But, before we get into green hydrogen let’s take a step back and check what are the uses of hydrogen and why green hydrogen may be the solution to the varied climate and environmental issues that we face today.

Hydrogen and its uses

Hydrogen was first produced in 1650 but it absolutely was not until almost a century later that its true potential was realized and put to use. for several years now Hydrogen has been utilized in industries similarly as for environmental preservation.

Industrial use: Industrially some of the uses of hydrogen are

in oil refineries to for desulfurization of fossil fuels for production of ammonia for metallic oil reduction for welding as a rotor coolant in large generators in the space industry as a rocket fuel as a reducing agent

Environmental use: the most use of Hydrogen within the environment is to urge eliminate sulphur that’s present in fossil fuels to provide cleaner fuel.

returning to Green Hydrogen and why it’s making all the large Oil and Gas companies and governments bank for it. Hydrogen produced from fossil fuels like lignite or coal is brown in color and gray if produced from steam methane reformation. Both these sources don’t seem to be very carbon friendly even the more modern turquoise hydrogen, where the residual gases are curtailed through storage and carbon capture.

Green Hydrogen if successful can address of these problems and also the world can head towards a cleaner Earth. In fact, Strategy& which is an element of the PwC network projects that the demand for Green Hydrogen within the year 2050 would be 37% of the present global production.

Source: https://www.strategyand.pwc.com/m1/en/reports/2020/the-dawn-of-green-hydrogen.html

Green Hydrogen in the Middle East

Green Hydrogen within the geographic area one in each of the first reasons that there’s a requirement for green hydrogen is that the reduced cost and development within the renewable energy sector, especially solar and wind. the massive availability of land, bumper sources of renewable energy, stable economy, and infrastructure both physical and intellectual makes the center East ideal for exploring this technology. In fact, some countries here have already initiated projects that have a promising future.

UAE

UAE is building the region’s first solar-driven green hydrogen facility. the ability will use solar panels and wind turbines because of the fuel for the electrolysis of water. Since seawater would be the first source of water for electrolysis it must be desalinated before use. But, like all new technologies, this too has its challenges that require to be addressed. The brine that’s a residue of desalination can’t be disposed of back to the ocean, studies for solutions for zero brine water are underway but a concrete solution would take time. Although the method of electrolysis is extremely old given the dimensions of the project and limited demand the electrolysis machines are very expensive. But, the Dubai Electricity and Water Authority or DEWA is together with the Maktoum Solar park to higher understand the assembly of hydrogen with solar. The hydrogen produced from this project would be used for cell vehicles and can showcase in Expo 2020.

Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia together with ACWA is about to become the biggest producer of Green Hydrogen within the world and has taken a step towards a carbon-free future. Neom which implies ‘new future’ will produce 650 tonnes of hydrogen a day which is enough to fuel 20000 hydrogen field buses. It’s been almost 4 years since the job has been underway on building an enormous electrolyser. Although ACWA owns power plants everywhere on the planet and has water desalination plants it’s relatively inexperienced during this technology and says it’s an uphill task to make sure the success of this project.

Oman

The country’s first industrial-scale green hydrogen project is ready to require off in Sohar port. The project is envisioned to form Sohar port the world energy hub. the assembly of Green Hydrogen would be from solar sources and also the hydrogen produced would be used for industrial and clean transportation. The Port of Rotterdam could be a 50% partner during this venture. Like all other projects associated with green hydrogen, the Sohar project will have similar challenges with regard to cost and scale of production.

Bahrain

Quite recently Air Products and NOGA holdings have signed an agreement to explore the prospects of Green Hydrogen in Bahrain. Hydrogen is being considered as an alternate transport fuel similarly to reducing emissions.

The agreement between these two parties was signed on 26th November 2020. Although Green Hydrogen prospects look promising the prices of manufacturing it’s something that continues to be unimaginable to most countries within the world. Production of 1kg of hydrogen requires about 50 kWh of electricity and within the Gulf solar power costs 3$ct/kWh with energy costs of 1.5 $/kg.

The price of an electrolyser to supply large-scale hydrogen is $600,000 per MW with costs projected to scale back to $400,000 some years down the road. If we assume the annual full load hours to be 8000, with a 1MW electrolyser would be as low as 1.75$/kg.

If these challenges may be overcome the long run of Green Hydrogen looks very promising and it might be that one step that we’ve got taken to confirm a cleaner Earth for future generations.

For more information: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rakesh-nair-business/