United Kingdom
Vision for a European Metrology Network for Energy Gases
Mar 2022
Publication
As Europe moves towards decarbonising its energy infrastructure new measurement needs will arise that require collaborative efforts between European National Metrology Institutes and Designated Institutes to tackle. Such measurement needs include flow metering of hydrogen or hydrogen enriched natural gas in the gas grid for billing quality assurance of hydrogen at refuelling stations and equations of state for carbon dioxide in carbon capture and storage facilities. The European metrology network for energy gases for the first time provides a platform where metrology institutes can work together to develop a harmonised strategy prioritise new challenges and share expertise and capabilities to support the European energy gas industry to meet stringent EU targets for climate change and emissions reductions
A Quantitative Assessment of the Hydrogen Storage Capacity of the UK Continental Shelf
Nov 2020
Publication
Increased penetration of renewable energy sources and decarbonisation of the UK's gas supply will require large-scale energy storage. Using hydrogen as an energy storage vector we estimate that 150 TWh of seasonal storage is required to replace seasonal variations in natural gas production. Large-scale storage is best suited to porous rock reservoirs. We present a method to quantify the hydrogen storage capacity of gas fields and saline aquifers using data previously used to assess CO2 storage potential. We calculate a P50 value of 6900 TWh of working gas capacity in gas fields and 2200 TWh in saline aquifers on the UK continental shelf assuming a cushion gas requirement of 50%. Sensitivity analysis reveals low temperature storage sites with sealing rocks that can withstand high pressures are ideal sites. Gas fields in the Southern North Sea could utilise existing infrastructure and large offshore wind developments to develop large-scale offshore hydrogen production.
An Investigation into the Change Leakage when Switching from Natural Gas to Hydrogen in the UK Gas Distribution Network
Sep 2021
Publication
The H21 National Innovation Competition project is examining the feasibility of repurposing the existing GB natural gas distribution network for transporting 100% hydrogen. It aims to undertake an experimental testing programme that will provide the necessary data to quantify the comparative risk between a 100% hydrogen network and the natural gas network. The first phase of the project focuses on leakage testing of a strategic set of assets that have been removed from service which provide a representative sample of assets across the network. This paper presents the work undertaken for Phase 1A (background testing) where HSE and industry partners have tested a range of natural gas pipework assets of varying size material age and pressure-rating in a new bespoke open-air testing facility at the HSE Science and Research Centre Buxton. The assets have been pressurised with hydrogen and then methane and the leakage rate from the assets measured in both cases. The main finding of this work is that the assets tested which leak hydrogen also leak methane. None of the assets were found to leak hydrogen but not methane. In addition repair techniques that were effective at stopping methane leaks were also effective at stopping hydrogen leaks. The data from the experiments have been interpreted to obtain a range of leakage ratios between the two gases for releases under different conditions. This has been compared to the predicted ratio of hydrogen to methane volumetric leak rates for laminar (1.2:1) and turbulent (2.9:1) releases and good agreement was observed.
Renewable Hydrogen Economy Outlook in Africa
Jun 2022
Publication
Hydrogen presents an opportunity for Africa to not only decarbonise its own energy use and enable clean energy access for all but also to export renewable energy. This paper developed a framework for assessing renewable resources for hydrogen production and provides a new critical analysis as to how and what role hydrogen can play in the complex African energy landscape. The regional solar wind CSP and bio hydrogen potential ranges from 366 to 1311 Gt/year 162 to 1782 Gt/year 463 to 2738 Gt/year and 0.03 to 0.06 Gt/year respectively. The water availability and sensitivity results showed that the water shortages in some countries can be abated by importing water from regions with high renewable water resources. A techno-economic comparative analysis indicated that a high voltage direct current (HVDC) system presents the most cost-effective transportation system with overall costs per kg hydrogen of 0.038 $/kg followed by water pipeline with 0.084 $/kg seawater desalination 0.1 $/kg liquified hydrogen tank truck 0.12 $/kg compressed hydrogen pipeline 0.16 $/kg liquefied ammonia pipeline 0.38 $/kg liquefied ammonia tank truck 0.60 $/kg and compressed hydrogen tank truck with 0.77 $/kg. The results quantified the significance of economies of scale due to cost effectiveness of systems such as compressed hydrogen pipeline and liquefied hydrogen tank truck systems when hydrogen production is scaled up. Decentralization is favorable under some constraints e.g. compressed hydrogen and liquefied ammonia tank truck systems will be more cost effective below 800 km and 1400 km due to lower investment and operation costs.
Agreement for the Low Carbon Hydrogen Production Business Model
Dec 2022
Publication
The Heads of Terms for the Low Carbon Hydrogen Agreement sets out the government’s proposal for the final hydrogen production business model design. It will form the basis of the Low Carbon Hydrogen Agreement the business model contract between the government appointed counterparty and a low carbon hydrogen producer.<br/>The business model will provide revenue support to hydrogen producers to overcome the operating cost gap between low carbon hydrogen and high carbon fuels. It has been designed to incentivise investment in low carbon hydrogen production and use and in doing so deliver the government’s ambition of up to 10GW of low carbon hydrogen production capacity by 2030.
US-UK Scientific Forum on Sustainable Energy: Electrical Storage in Support of the Grid, Forum Report
Sep 2022
Publication
The effort to meet the ambitious targets of the Paris agreement is challenging many governments. The US and UK governments might have different approaches to achieving the targets but both will rely heavily on renewable energy sources such as wind and solar to power their economies. However these sources of power are unpredictable and ways will have to be developed to store renewable energy for hours days weeks seasons and maybe even years before it is used. As the disruptive and increasingly deadly impacts of climate change are being felt across the world the need to move to more sustainable sources of energy and to identify viable ways to store that energy has never been more important.<br/>This was the subject of the US–UK Science Forum on electrical storage in support of the grid which was held online from 17 – 18 March 2021. Co-organised by the Royal Society and the National Academy of Sciences it brought together a diverse group of 60 scientists policy makers industry leaders regulators and other key stakeholders for a wide-ranging discussion on all aspects of energy storage from the latest research in the field to the current status of deployment. It also considered the current national and international economic and policy contexts in which these developments are taking place. A number of key points emerged from the discussion. First it is clear that renewable energy will play an increasingly important role in the US and UK energy systems of the future and energy storage at a multi-terawatt hour scale has a vital role to play. Of course this will evolve differently to some extent in both countries and elsewhere according to the various geographical technological economic political social and regulatory environments. Second international collaboration is critical – no single nation will solve this problem alone. As two of the world’s leading scientific nations largest economies and per capita CO2 emitters with a long track record of collaboration the US and UK are well placed to play a vital role in addressing this critical challenge. As the discussion highlighted a wide range of energy storage technologies are now emerging and becoming increasingly available many of which have the potential to be critical components of a future net-zero energy system. A crucial next phase is in ensuring that these are technically developed as well as economically and political viable. This will require the support of a wide range of these potential solutions to ensure that their benefits remain widely available and to avoid costly ‘lock-in’. Scientists and science academies have a critical role to play in analysing technology options their combinations and their potential roles in future sustainable energy systems and in working with policymakers to incentivise investment and deployment.
On the Cost of Zero Carbon Hydrogen: A Techno-economic Analysis of Steam Methane Reforming with Carbon Capture and Storage
May 2023
Publication
This article challenges the view that zero carbon hydrogen from steam methane reforming (SMR) is prohibitively expensive and that the cost of CO2 capture increases exponentially as residual emissions approach zero; a flawed narrative often eliminating SMR produced hydrogen as a route to net zero. We show that the capture and geological storage of 100% of the fossil CO2 produced in a SMR is achievable with commercially available post-combustion capture technology and an open art solvent. The Levelised Cost of Hydrogen (LCOH) of 69£/MWhth HHV (2.7£/kg) for UK production remains competitive to other forms of low carbon hydrogen but retains a hydrogen lifecycle carbon intensity of 5 gCO2e/MJ (LHV) due to natural gas supply chain and embodied greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Compensating for the remaining lifecycle GHG emissions via Direct Air Capture with geological CO2 Storage (DACCS) increases the LCOH to 71–86 £/MWhth HHV (+3–25%) for a cost estimate of 100–1000 £/tCO2 for DACCS and the 2022 UK natural gas supply chain methane emission rates. Finally we put in perspective the cost of CO2 avoidance of fuel switching from natural gas to hydrogen with long term price estimates for natural gas use and DACCS and hydrogen produced from electrolysis.
Combined Effects of Stress and Temperature on Hydrogen Diffusion in Non-hydride Forming Alloys Applied in Gas Turbines
Jul 2022
Publication
Hydrogen plays a vital role in the utilisation of renewable energy but ingress and diffusion of hydrogen in a gas turbine can induce hydrogen embrittlement on its metallic components. This paper aims to investigate the hydrogen transport in a non-hydride forming alloy such as Alloy 690 used in gas turbines inspired by service conditions of turbine blades i.e. under the combined effects of stress and temperature. An appropriate hydrogen transport equation is formulated accounting for both stress and temperature distributions of the domain in the non-hydride forming alloy. Finite element (FE) analyses are performed to predict steady-state hydrogen distribution in lattice sites and dislocation traps of a double notched specimen under constant tensile load and various temperature fields. Results demonstrate that the lattice hydrogen concentration is very sensitive to the temperature gradients whilst the stress concentration only slightly increases local lattice hydrogen concentration. The combined effects of stress and temperature result in the highest concentration of the dislocation trapped hydrogen in low-temperature regions although the plastic strain is only at a moderate level. Our results suggest that temperature gradients and stress concentrations in turbine blades due to cooling channels and holes make the relatively low-temperature regions susceptible to hydrogen embrittlement.
Impact of Hydrogen Liquefaction on Hydrogen Fuel Quality for Transport Applications (ISO-14687:2019)
Aug 2022
Publication
Decarbonisation of the energy sector is becoming increasingly more important to the reduction in climate change. Renewable energy is an effective means of reducing CO2 emissions but the fluctuation in demand and production of energy is a limiting factor. Liquid hydrogen allows for long-term storage of energy. Hydrogen quality is important for the safety and efficiency of the end user. Furthermore the quality of the hydrogen gas after liquefaction has not yet been reported. The purity of hydrogen after liquefaction was assessed against the specification of Hydrogen grade D in the ISO-14687:2019 by analysing samples taken at different locations throughout production. Sampling was carried out directly in gas cylinders and purity was assessed using multiple analytical methods. The results indicate that the hydrogen gas produced from liquefaction is of a higher purity than the starting gas with all impurities below the threshold values set in ISO-14687:2019. The amount fraction of water measured in the hydrogen sample increased with repeated sampling from the liquid hydrogen tank suggesting that the sampling system used was affected by low temperatures (−253 ◦C). These data demonstrate for the first time the impact of liquefaction on hydrogen purity assessed against ISO-14687:2019 showing that liquified hydrogen is a viable option for long-term energy storage whilst also improving quality.
Feasibility Study of Vacuum Pressure Swing Adsorption for CO2 Capture From an SMR Hydrogen Plant: Comparison Between Synthesis Gas Capture and Tail Gas Capture
Dec 2021
Publication
In this paper a feasibility study was carried out to evaluate cyclic adsorption processes for capturing CO2 from either shifted synthesis gas or H2 PSA tail gas of an industrial-scale SMR-based hydrogen plant. It is expected that hydrogen is to be widely used in place of natural gas in various industrial sectors where electrification would be rather challenging. A SMR-based hydrogen plant is currently dominant in the market as it can produce hydrogen at scale in the most economical way. Its CO2 emission must be curtailed significantly by its integration with CCUS. Two Vacuum Pressure Swing Adsorption (VPSA) systems including a rinse step were designed to capture CO2 from an industrial-scale SMR-based hydrogen plant: one for the shifted synthesis gas and the other for the H2 PSA tail gas. Given the shapes of adsorption isotherms zeolite 13X and activated carbon were selected for tail gas and syngas capture options respectively. A simple Equilibrium Theory model developed for the limiting case of complete regeneration was taken to analyse the VPSA systems in this feasibility study. The process performances were compared to each other with respect to product recovery bed productivity and power consumption. It was found that CO2 could be captured more cost-effectively from the syngas than the tail gas unless the desorption pressure was too low. The energy consumption of the VPSA was comparable to those of the conventional MDEA processes.
Hydrogen-Enriched Compressed Natural Gas Network Simulation for Consuming Green Hydrogen Considering the Hydrogen Diffusion Process
Sep 2022
Publication
Transporting green hydrogen by existing natural gas networks has become a practical means to accommodate curtailed wind and solar power. Restricted by pipe materials and pressure levels there is an upper limit on the hydrogen blending ratio of hydrogen-enriched compressed natural gas (HCNG) that can be transported by natural gas pipelines which affects whether the natural gas network can supply energy safely and reliably. To this end this paper investigates the effects of the intermittent and fluctuating green hydrogen produced by different types of renewable energy on the dynamic distribution of hydrogen concentration after it is blended into natural gas pipelines. Based on the isothermal steady-state simulation results of the natural gas network two convection–diffusion models for the dynamic simulation of hydrogen injections are proposed. Finally the dynamic changes of hydrogen concentration in the pipelines under scenarios of multiple green hydrogen types and multiple injection nodes are simulated on a seven-node natural gas network. The simulation results indicate that compared with the solar-power-dominated hydrogen productionblending scenario the hydrogen concentrations in the natural gas pipelines are more uniformly distributed in the wind-power-dominated scenario and the solar–wind power balance scenario. To be specific in the solar-power-dominated scenario the hydrogen concentration exceeds the limit for more time whilst the overall hydrogen production is low and the local hydrogen concentration in the natural gas network exceeds the limit for nearly 50% of the time in a day. By comparison in the wind-power-dominated scenario all pipelines can work under safe conditions. The hydrogen concentration overrun time in the solar–wind power balance scenario is also improved compared with the solar-power-dominated scenario and the limit-exceeding time of the hydrogen concentration in Pipe 5 and Pipe 6 is reduced to 91.24% and 91.99% of the solar-power-dominated scenario. This work can help verify the day-ahead scheduling strategy of the electricity-HCNG integrated energy system (IES) and provide a reference for the design of local hydrogen production-blending systems.
Reducing the Cost of Low-carbon Hydrogen Production via Emerging Chemical Looping Process
Jan 2023
Publication
A thorough techno-economic analysis where inherent carbon capture is examined against state-of-the-art blue hydrogen production configurations for large (100000 Nm3 /h) and very large (333000 Nm3 /h) capacities. Advanced solvent-based technologies based on post-combustion capture and auto-thermal reformer combined with a gas heated reformer are simulated with process flowsheet software and compared with the emerging chemical looping process. A network of dynamically operated packed bed reactors has been designed and modelled using an in-house code and key parameters generating uncertainties in the results have been examined in a sensitivity analysis. The chemical looping reforming process presents a higher net reforming efficiency than the benchmark cases (8.2 % higher at large scale and 1.5 % higher at very large scale) ranged 75.4–75.7 % while the specific energy for CO2 avoidance is negative in the range of − 0.78 to − 0.85 MJ/kgCO2. In the carbon capture cases the chemical looping reforming in packed beds technology generated a levelised cost of hydrogen of 168.9 £/kNm3 H2 for the large scale and 159.1 £/kNm3 H2 for the very large scale with the values for the benchmark cases being higher at 196.4 and 166.6 £/kNm3 H2 respectively while the levelised cost of hydrogen values are 1 % higher in the benchmark cases where carbon emission price is accounted for. The carbon capture ratio is 99.9 % for the chemical looping reforming cases compared to 90–91 % for the benchmark ones thus providing a significant foreground for the scale-up and implementation of chemical looping reforming technologies for hydrogen production.
Inspection of Coated Hydrogen Transportation Pipelines
Sep 2023
Publication
The growing need for hydrogen indicates that there is likely to be a demand for transporting hydrogen. Hydrogen pipelines are an economical option but the issue of hydrogen damage to pipeline steels needs to be studied and investigated. So far limited research has been dedicated to determining how the choice of inspection method for pipeline integrity management changes depending on the presence of a coating. Thus this review aims to evaluate the effectiveness of inspection methods specifically for detecting the defects formed uniquely in coated hydrogen pipelines. The discussion will begin with a background of hydrogen pipelines and the common defects seen in these pipelines. This will also include topics such as blended hydrogen-natural gas pipelines. After which the focus will shift to pipeline integrity management methods and the effectiveness of current inspection methods in the context of standards such as ASME B31.12 and BS 7910. The discussion will conclude with a summary of newly available inspection methods and future research directions.
Stochastic Low-order Modelling of Hydrogen Autoignition in a Turbulent Non-premixed Flow
Jul 2022
Publication
Autoignition risk in initially non-premixed flowing systems such as premixing ducts must be assessed to help the development of low-NOx systems and hydrogen combustors. Such situations may involve randomly fluctuating inlet conditions that are challenging to model in conventional mixture-fraction-based approaches. A Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)-based surrogate modelling strategy is presented here for fast and accurate predictions of the stochastic autoignition behaviour of a hydrogen flow in a hot air turbulent co-flow. The variability of three input parameters i.e. inlet fuel and air temperatures and average wall temperature is first sampled via a space-filling design. For each sampled set of conditions the CFD modelling of the flame is performed via the Incompletely Stirred Reactor Network (ISRN) approach which solves the reacting flow governing equations in post-processing on top of a Large Eddy Simulation (LES) of the inert hydrogen plume. An accurate surrogate model namely a Gaussian Process is then trained on the ISRN simulations of the burner and the final quantification of the variability of autoignition locations is achieved by querying the surrogate model via Monte Carlo sampling of the random input quantities. The results are in agreement with the observed statistics of the autoignition locations. The methodology adopted in this work can be used effectively to quantify the impact of fluctuations and assist the design of practical combustion systems. © 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. on behalf of The Combustion Institute.
Techno-economic Study of a 100-MW-class Multi-energy Vehicle Charging/Refueling Station: Using 100% Renewable, Liquid Hydrogen, and Superconductor Technologies
Dec 2022
Publication
Renewable energies such as the wind energy and solar energy generate low-carbon electricity which can directly charge battery electric vehicles (BEVs). Meanwhile the surplus electricity can be used to produce the “green hydrogen” which provides zero-emission hydrogen fuels to those fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs). In order to charge/refuel multi-energy vehicles we propose a novel scheme of hybrid hydrogen/electricity supply using cryogenic and superconducting technologies. In this scheme the green hydrogen is further liquefied into the high-density and low-pressure liquid hydrogen (LH2) for bulk energy storage and transmission. Taking the advantage of the cryogenic environment of LH2 (20 K) it can also be used as the cryogen to cool down super conducting cables to realize the virtually zero-loss power transmission from 100 % renewable sources to vehicle charging stations. This hybrid LH2/electricity energy pipeline can realize long-distance large-capacity and high efficiency clean energy transmission to fulfil the hybrid energy supply demand for BEVs and FCEVs. For the case of a 100 MW-class hybrid hydrogen/electricity supply station the system principle and energy management strategy are analyzed through 9 different operating sub-modes. The corresponding static and dynamic economic modeling are performed and the economic feasibility of the hybrid hydrogen/electricity supply is verified using life-cycle analysis. Taking an example of wind power capacity 1898 MWh and solar power capacity 1619 MWh per day the dynamic payback period is 15.06 years the profitability index is 1.17 the internal rate of return is 7.956 % and the accumulative NPV is 187.92 M$. The system design and techno-economic analysis can potentially offer a technically/economically superior solution for future multi-energy vehicle charging/refueling systems.
Combustion Characterization of Hybrid Methane-hydrogen Gas in Domestic Swirl Stoves
Oct 2022
Publication
Combustion of hybrid natural gas (methane) and hydrogen mixture in domestic swirl stoves has been characterized using hot-state experiments and numerical analysis. The detailed combustion mechanism of methane and hydrogen (GRI-Mech 3.0) has been simplified to obtain reduced number of chemical reactions involved (82 % reduction). The novel simplified combustion mechanism developed has been used to obtain combustion characteristics of hybrid methane-hydrogen mixture. The difference between the calculations from the detailed and the simplified mechanisms has been found to be Combustion of hybrid natural gas (methane) and hydrogen mixture in domestic swirl stoves has been characterized using hot-state experiments and numerical analysis. The detailed combustion mechanism of methane and hydrogen (GRI-Mech 3.0) has been simplified to obtain reduced number of chemical reactions involved (82 % reduction). The novel simplified combustion mechanism developed has been used to obtain combustion characteristics of hybrid methane-hydrogen mixture. The difference between the calculations from the detailed and the simplified mechanisms has been found to be <1 %. A numerical model based on the simplified combustion model is developed rigorously tested and validated against hot-state tests. The results depict that the maximum difference in combustion zone’s average temperature is <13 %. The investigations have then been extended to hybrid methane-hydrogen mixtures with varying volume fraction of hydrogen. The results show that for a mixture containing 15 % hydrogen the release of CO due to combustion reduces by 25 % while the combustion zone’s average temperature reduces by 6.7 %. The numerical results and hot-state tests both confirm that the temperature remains stable when hybrid methane-hydrogen mixture is used in domestic swirl gas stoves demonstrating its effectiveness in cooking processes.
First Hydrogen Fuel Sampling from a Fuel Cell Hydrogen Electrical Vehicle–Validation of Hydrogen Fuel Sampling System to Investigate FCEV Performance
Aug 2022
Publication
Fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEV) are developing quickly from passenger vehicles to trucks or fork-lifts. Policymakers are supporting an ambitious strategy to deploy fuel cell electrical vehicles with infrastructure as hydrogen refueling stations (HRS) as the European Green deal for Europe. The hydrogen fuel quality according to international standard as ISO 14687 is critical to ensure the FCEV performance and that poor hydrogen quality may not cause FCEV loss of performance. However the sampling system is only available for nozzle sampling at HRS. If a FCEV may show a lack of performance there is currently no methodology to sample hydrogen fuel from a FCEV itself. It would support the investigation to determine if hydrogen fuel may have caused any performance loss. This article presents the first FCEV sampling system and its comparison with the hydrogen fuel sampling from the HRS nozzle (as requested by international standard ISO 14687). The results showed good agreement with the hydrogen fuel sample. The results demonstrate that the prototype developed provides representative samples from the FCEV and can be an alternative to determine hydrogen fuel quality. The prototype will require improvements and a larger sampling campaign.
Metal-Hydride-Based Hydrogen Storage as Potential Heat Source for the Cold Start of PEM FC in Hydrogen-Powered Coaches: A Comparative Study of Various Materials and Thermal Management Techniques
Nov 2022
Publication
The successful and fast start-up of proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) at subfreezing temperatures (cold start) is very important for the use of PEMFCs as energy sources for automotive applications. The effective thermal management of PEMFCs is of major importance. When hydrogen is stored in hydride-forming intermetallics significant amounts of heat are released due to the exothermic nature of the reaction. This excess of heat can potentially be used for PEMFC thermal management and to accelerate the cold start. In the current work this possibility is extensively studied. Three hydride-forming intermetallics are introduced and their hydrogenation behavior is evaluated. In addition five thermal management scenarios of the metal hydride beds are studied in order to enhance the kinetics of the hydrogenation. The optimum combination of the intermetallic hydrogenation behavior weight and complexity of the thermal management system was chosen for the study of thermal coupling with the PEMFCs. A 1D GT-SUITE model was built to stimulate the thermal coupling of a 100 kW fuel cell stack with the metal hydride. The results show that the use of the heat from the metal hydride system was able to reduce the cold start by up to 8.2%.
Effect of State of Charge on Type IV Hydrogen Storage Tank Rupture in a Fire
Sep 2021
Publication
The use of hydrogen storage tanks at 100% of nominal working pressure NWP is expected only after refuelling. Driving between refuellings is characterised by the state of charge SoC<100%. There is experimental evidence that Type IV tanks tested in a fire at initial pressures below one-third of its NWP depending on a fire source were leaking without rupture. This paper aims at understanding this phenomenon and the development of a predictive model. The numerical research has demonstrated that the heat transfer from fire through the composite overwrap is sufficient to melt the polymer liner. This initiates hydrogen microleaks through the composite wall before it loses the load-bearing ability when the resin degrades deep enough to cause the tank to rupture. The dependence of tank fire-resistance rating (FRR) on the SoC is presented for tanks of volume in the range 36-244 L. The tank wall thickness non-uniformity i.e. thinner composite at the dome area is identified as a serious issue for tank’s fire resistance that must be addressed by tank manufacturers and OEMs. The effect of the burst pressure ratio on FRR is investigated. It is concluded that thermal parameters of the composite wall i.e. decomposition heat and temperatures play a vital role in simulations of tank failure and thus FRR.
Regional Uptake of Direct Reduction Iron Production Using Hydrogen Under Climate Policy
Nov 2022
Publication
The need to reduce CO2 emissions to zero by 2050 has meant an increasing focus on high emitting industrial sectors such as steel. However significant uncertainties remain as to the rate of technology diffusion across steel production pathways in different regions and how this might impact on climate ambition. Informed by empirical analysis of historical transitions this paper presents modelling on the regional deployment of Direction Reduction Iron using hydrogen (DRI-H2). We find that DRI-H2 can play a leading role in the decarbonisation of the sector leading to near-zero emissions by 2070. Regional spillovers from early to late adopting regions can speed up the rate of deployment of DRI-H2 leading to lower cumulative emissions and system costs. Without such effects cumulative emissions are 13% higher than if spillovers are assumed and approximately 15% and 20% higher in China and India respectively. Given the estimates of DRI-H2 cost-effectiveness relative to other primary production technologies we also find that costs increase in the absence of regional spillovers. However other factors can also have impacts on deployment emission reductions and costs including the composition of the early adopter group material efficiency improvements and scrap recycling rates. For the sector to achieve decarbonisation key regions will need to continue to invest in low carbon steel projects recognising their broader global benefit and look to develop and strengthen policy coordination on technologies such as DRI-H2.
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