32
GREEN ENERGY
THE ROAD TO A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE
PAVED WITH GREEN HYDROGEN? Matthew Knight, Head of Market Development at Siemens Energy
Noise across the energy sector is growing with regards to hydrogen – particularly ‘green’ hydrogen. It is an, as yet, widely untapped market that seems to provide enormous potential for the global journey to net-zero. But how do we get there and what role might green hydrogen have to play? Matthew Knight is one of several individuals and companies keen to help shape the future of hydrogen in the UK and abroad. He is the Head of Market Development at Siemens Energy – a new enterprise that spun out from Siemens AG last year – and he is tasked with supporting the company’s energy transition. He has more than 30 years’ experience in the energy market, having been involved with electricity grid projects, the establishment of offshore wind farms and, more recently, he has been focused on developing the potential of green (and blue) hydrogen. He is also on the Government’s Carbon Capture and Storage Taskforce and Hydrogen Expert Group, engaging with Government as an industry representative to help shape sector regulations and support. Matthew is passionate about the need for eminent and significant development of the industry, dramatically increasing production capacity and doing so relatively quickly. He says: “Hydrogen is only worth doing if done at scale. We don’t have time to mess around with something that won’t make a tangible
www.ogv.energy I June 2021
contribution to saving the planet. It will take 30 years to deploy hydrogen at the scale needed to replace the fossil fuel system, so we need to start making real progress now. “Our current electrolysers use 17.5MW of electricity to make eight tonnes of hydrogen per day, but we need to be working towards 50MW in the next two to three years and 100MW in the next five. This would help the industry fulfil its green promises and would need to be followed by consistent deployment of gigawatts in the UK each year throughout the next two decades to play its part in delivering net-zero by 2050. “We are going to need a lot of hydrogen. Siemens Energy is currently building Europe’s most efficient natural gas fuel power station with SSE Thermal at Keadby in Lincolnshire, which could well be the last new natural gas station built in Britain. To run this on green hydrogen would require 55 tones every hour, which equates to 120 tube trailer loads an hour. Of course, a pipeline supply would be more practical, but this highlights the importance of adapting systems to cater for future needs. “We are also developing the capability of our gas turbines to run on hydrogen. Consider the HYFLEXPOWER project, which uses one of the engines we build in Lincoln. As the world’s first integrated power-to-X-to-power hydrogen gas turbine demonstrator, it will run on 100%
hydrogen by 2023 – this is the very cuttingedge of the industry. I hope many more world firsts will happen in UK within our industrial clusters as we create and develop a new industry to decarbonise our planet.” As is true in most walks of life, cost is a challenge in the upscaling of green hydrogen, as Matthew goes on to explain: “The goal is to reach green hydrogen production costs that rival natural gas. Right now, we can produce green hydrogen for around £5 per kilogram – we need to halve this by 2030. As the cost of green hydrogen comes down, new opportunities for largescale projects will open up.” From a technology provider perspective, a massive increase in production capacity for electrolysers is needed, which is already being prepared for. The combination of hydrogen production capacity and costs has created what Matthew calls the “hydrogen conundrum”. “The hydrogen economy is great once everything is set-up and running,” he says. “However, there are two challenges to overcome first. One – no one wants to supply hydrogen until there’s a market for it, but no one can buy technology powered by hydrogen until there is a supply. Two – we know that the more projects we do, the more we learn,
