Can green hydrogen be a real option in electricity transport? In more recent times there are several things that suggest so. The ban on the production of combustion vehicles by the European Union in 2035, followed by the German and Italian blockade and the defense of new food options, in addition to synthetic fuels, has favored various decarbonization options. Or the information about H2Med and the investment of the French as a pipeline initially one way for green hydrogen, two-way channel for pink hydrogen, flooded the media warning about the multiple chromatic variants of this fuel.
The usefulness of green hydrogen in mobility, especially in public and transport mobility, is unquestionable. So we wanted to go a little deeper.
A few days ago in Hybrids and electrics, we talked about a catalyst that produced a large amount of green hydrogen from seawater, well, in Lhyfe they have already gone one step further and in 2022 installed the first green hydrogen production on a high pilot platform. seas of the world Earlier, in 2021, they also reached another milestone: they installed the world’s first industrial-scale green hydrogen production plant connected to offshore wind.
To learn a little more about this material and its potential in the automotive industry, we talked Francis Pieter Indeboom, Lhyfe country manager in Spain. But what is Lhyfe? “Lhyfe was born in 2017 in the initiative of five people who worked in the French energy industry and who had a dream of decarbonizing the world. They saw the potential of hydrogen, especially green hydrogen, and decided to create a company. Today Lhyfe is present in 11 European countries, has 150 employees and expects to to reach 200 million in turnover by 2024.
I ask What is green hydrogen and how is it different from other hydrogens?
A. Consectute is green which is produced using only water and electricity. In our country, there is also renewable electricity from the wind and the sun. What we do is we separate the water into hydrogen and oxygen and we sell the advantage of the hydrogen for energy and mobility.
98% of all hydrogen consumed in the world hydrogen gray which transforms methane into C02 and hydrogen through a steam reformer. 80% is used in refining and in the production of fertilizers, especially ammonia.
In addition to gray hydrogen, we have hydrogen blue in which CO2, instead of remaining in the air, with consequent global warming, is captured and stored in the earth’s chains, ancient gas caves. It is left there, and does not go into the environment by reason. Other names for hydrogen are Hydrogen rose; which is produced from nuclear energy, or the hydrogen yellow; of pyrolysis.
Q. What are the advantages of green hydrogen?
R. We need to electrify and do so through clean and renewable energy. A great advantage of this is that it needs to be studied. You can store it and leave it where you want until you need it and you can also transport it. In particular, green hydrogen has the advantage that it uses renewable energy. This allows the electrification of processes that currently use other sources of energy, such as hydrogen itself, and reduces the impact on global warming.
Q. What applications does it have in mobility?
R. The great advantage of hydrogen in mobility is the speed of recharging. No such thing as a motorcycle or a motorcycle. That is, it is much faster compared to electric batteries. And it provides a circle that can easily reach 700 kilometers. On the other hand, the price of fossil fuels is similar.
The great advantage of hydrogen is the speed of recharging and the 700 km of autonomy it offers
Cost is a major barrier to hydrogen adoption. Such as basketball trucks, and vehicles. We need to financially compensate anyone who wants to switch to hydrogen. It is very difficult to compete with cheaper markets like China. The transition to hydrogen must have financial support.
It should be added that the regulation in Europe is not clear enough. With adequate organization and an affordable price, you can create the perfect decoration for which we rise. It is important that people understand that we can change our lifestyle and have lower emissions.
With a reliable organization and an affordable price, you create the perfect environment for hydrogen to start
Q. It has been reported that by 2050, 20% of the energy consumed in Europe will come from renewable green hydrogen.
R. – I believe it is so and I hope much more. It is a market that has immense potential. Currently, 500,000 tons of hydrogen are consumed worldwide per year. By 2030 the goal is to reach one million and by 2050 one and a half million tons.
By 2030, the goal is to reach a global production of one million tons of green hydrogen
Q. That assumes an exponential growth that will require in turn a strong growth in developing renewable energy…
A. – Really. The most important thing is the price in the green hydrogen production industry. The process of water decomposition consumes a lot of electricity. If we can use renewable energy, it is the best option. Spain is a country with a lot of sun and a lot of wind and they have the ability to be an enormous producer of solar and wind energy, and therefore one of the main products of green hydrogen. We aspire to have the first green hydrogen production plant in Spain by 2025. Lhyfe Spain has set itself the goal of having 125 megawatts operational by 2028.
We aspire to have the first green hydrogen production plant in Spain by 2025
Q. In Lhyfe green hydrogen refining of the sea … you shook.
A. – We are pioneers. We built them in a very short time. They are prototypes at the moment. We first launched in France, but the goal is to send them to Spain and the North Sea with great work. Lhyfe’s green hydrogen uses two resources: water and energy. As we said, we use energy, they are all renewable and sustainable (consequently it is not a pink option for us, even if the EU has recognized it, because although it does not buy CO2, it generates waste and we are very angry about it) and we use water, they are also renewable. This is why we take advantage of sea water. Not surprisingly, 80% of the earth’s surface is occupied by oceans. In addition, to consider the future of hydrogen it is necessary to suppress new sources of renewable energy and wind is one of the most important energy sources. The production of hydrogen by wind turbines allows all countries with coastlines to access renewable green hydrogen, produced locally and in industrial quantities.
Sealhyfe has the capacity to produce 400 kg of green hydrogen per day, which is equivalent to 1 MW of power. Between now and 2030-2035, the coastal Lhyfe could represent an additional installed capacity of approximately 3 GW. Sealhyfe had the support of the French Energy and Environment Agency (ADEME) and the Pays de la Loire Region.
But we were also pioneers in the construction of the first European industrial plant directly connected to the wind farm, which we will start to install in 2021. Not counting offshore, in Europe we will reach 55 megawatts by the end of 2024, 200 megawatts in 2026 and a gigawatt in 2030. The main thing is to find customers for this industry. If we find strategies that make sense, we can do much more.
