Opportunities and Challenges of Latent Thermal Energy Usage in the Hydrogen Economy

Hydrogen plays a key role in decarbonising hard-to-abate sectors like aviation, steel, and shipping. However, producing pure hydrogen requires significant energy to break chemical bonds from its sources, such as gas and water. Ideally, the energy used for this process should match the energy output from hydrogen, but in reality, energy losses occur at various stages of the hydrogen economy—production, packaging, delivery, and use. This results in needing more energy to operate the hydrogen economy than it can ultimately provide. To address this, passive power sources like latent thermal energy storage systems can help reduce costs and improve efficiency. These systems can enable passive cooling or electricity generation from waste heat, cutting down on the extra energy needed for compression, liquefaction, and distribution. This study explores integrating latent thermal energy storage into all stages of the hydrogen economy, offering a cost and sizing approach for such systems. The integration could reduce costs, close the waste-heat recycling loop, and support green hydrogen production for achieving NetZero by 2050.