Policy & Socio-Economics

In recent years sustainable development has become a challenge for many societies due to natural or other disruptive events which have disrupted economic environmental and energy infrastructure growth. Developing hydrogen energy infrastructure is crucial for sustainable development because of its numerous benefits over conventional energy sources. However the complexity of hydrogen energy infrastructure including production utilization and storage stages requires accounting for potential vulnerabilities. Therefore resilience needs to be considered along with sustainable development. This paper proposes a decision-making framework to evaluate the resilience of hydrogen energy infrastructure by integrating resilience indicators and sustainability contributing factors. A holistic taxonomy of resilience performance is first developed followed by a qualitative resilience assessment framework using a novel Intuitionistic fuzzy Weighted Influence Nonlinear Gauge System (IFWINGS). The results highlighted that Regulation and legislation Government preparation and Crisis response budget are the most critical resilience indicators in the understudy hydrogen energy infrastructure. A comparative case study demonstrates the practicality capability and effectiveness of the proposed approach. The results suggest that the proposed model can be used for resilience assessment in other areas.

With its ability to store and transport energy without releasing greenhouse gases hydrogen is considered an important driver for the decarbonisation of energy systems. As future hydrogen import prices from global markets are subject to large uncertainties it is unclear what impact different hydrogen and derivative import prices will have on the future German energy system. To answer that research question this paper explores the impact of three different import price scenarios for hydrogen and its derivatives on the German energy system in a climate-neutral setting for Europe in 2045 using three different energy system models. The analysis shows that the quantities of electricity generated as well as the installed capacities for electricity generation and electrolysis increase as the hydrogen import price rises. However the resulting differences between the import price scenarios vary across the models. The results further indicate that domestic German (and European) hydrogen production is often cost-efficient.

The report “Policy Toolbox for Low Carbon and Renewable Hydrogen” is based on an assessment of the performance of hydrogen policies in different stages of market maturity and segments of the value chain. 48 policies were shortlisted based on their economic efficiency and effectiveness and mapped to barriers across the value chain and over time. These policies were subsequently clustered into policy packages for three country archetypes: a self-sufficient hydrogen producer an importer and an exporter of hydrogen.

The paper can be found on their website.

David Ledesma discusses with Alex Barnes the European Commission’s decision to make hydrogen a key part of its decarbonisation strategy. The 2022 REPowerEU Strategy set a target of 20MT consumption of renewable hydrogen by 2030. The Commission is keen to promote a single European market in hydrogen similar to the current one for natural gas. To this end it has published proposals on the regulation of future European hydrogen infrastructure (pipelines storage facilities and import terminals). The EU Council (representing Member States) and the EU Parliament are finalising their amendments to the Commission proposals prior to ‘trilogue’ negotiations and final agreement later this year. The OIES’s paper ‘The EU Hydrogen and Gas Decarbonisation Package: help or hindrance for the development of a European hydrogen market?’ published in March 2023 examines the EU Commission proposals and their suitability for a developing hydrogen market.

The podcast can be found on their website.

The Green Deal Industrial Plan aims to boost the competitiveness of Europe’s net-zero industry and to accelerate the transition to climate neutrality. The Plan is based on four pillars: (1) a predictable and simplified regulatory environment; (2) faster access to funding; (3) developing skills for net-zero industry; and (4) open trade for resilient supply chains.

The worsening climate crisis has increased the urgency of transitioning energy systems from fossil fuels to renewable sources. However many industrialized countries are struggling to meet their growing demand for renewable energy (RE) through domestic production alone and therefore seek to import additional RE using carriers such as hydrogen ammonia or metals. The pressing question for RE importers is therefore how to select trading partners i.e. RE exporting countries. Recent research has identified a plethora of different selection criteria reflecting the complexity of energy systems and international cooperation. However there is little guidance on how to reduce this complexity to more manageable levels as well as a lack of tools for effective partner evaluation. This article aims to fill these gaps. It proposes a new multidimensional framework for evaluating and comparing potential RE trading partners based on four dimensions: economy and technology environment and development regulation and governance and innovation and cooperation. Focusing on Germany as an RE importer an exploratory factor analysis is used to identify a consolidated set of composite selection criteria across these dimensions. The results suggest that Germany’s neighboring developed countries and current net energy exporters such as Canada and Australia are among the most attractive RE trading partners for Germany. A dashboard tool has been developed to provide the framework and composite criteria including adjustable weights to reflect the varying preferences of decision-makers and stakeholders. The framework and the dashboard can provide helpful guidance and transparency for partner selection processes facilitating the creation of RE trade networks that are essential for a successful energy transition.

A significant effort is required to reduce China’s dependency on fossil fuels while also supporting worldwide efforts to reduce climate change and develop hydrogen energy systems. A hydrogen economy must include renewable energy sources (RESs) which can offer a clean and sustainable energy source for producing hydrogen. This study uses an integrated fuzzy AHP–fuzzy TOPSIS method to evaluate and rank renewable energy sources for developing a hydrogen economy in China. This is a novel approach because it can capture the uncertainty and vagueness in the decision-making process and provide a comprehensive and robust evaluation of the alternatives. Moreover it considers multiple criteria and sub-criteria that reflect the environmental economic technical social and political aspects of RESs from the perspective of a hydrogen economy. This study identified five major criteria fifteen sub-criteria and six RES alternatives for hydrogen production. This integrated approach uses fuzzy AHP to evaluate and rank the criteria and sub-criteria and fuzzy TOPSIS to identify the most suitable and feasible RES. The results show that environmental economic and technical criteria are the most important criteria. Solar wind and hydropower are the top three RES alternatives that are most suitable and feasible. Furthermore biomass geo-thermal and tidal energy were ranked lower which might be due to the limitations and challenges in their adoption and performance in the context of the criteria and sub-criteria used for the analysis. This study’s findings add to the literature on guidelines to strategize for renewable energy adoption for the hydrogen economy in China.

The world is undergoing a substantial energy transition with an increasing share of intermittent sources of energy on the grid which is increasing the challenges to operate the power grid reliably. An option that has been receiving much focus after the COVID pandemic is the development of a hydrogen economy. Challenges for a hydrogen economy are the high investment costs involved in compression storage and long-distance transportation. This paper analyses an innovative proposal for the creation of hydrogen ocean links. It intends to fill existing gaps in the creation of a hydrogen economy with the increase in flexibility and viability for hydrogen production consumption compression storage and transportation. The main concept behind the proposals presented in this paper consists of using the fact that the pressure in the deep sea is very high which allows a thin and cheap HDPE tank to store and transport large amounts of pressurized hydrogen in the deep sea. This is performed by replacing seawater with pressurized hydrogen and maintaining the pressure in the pipes similar to the outside pressure. Hydrogen Deep Ocean Link has the potential of increasing the interconnectivity of different regional energy grids into a global sustainable interconnected energy system.

Policy Connect Carbon Connect and sector and Parliamentary experts have collaborated to present options for the gas grid to play a useful role in the UK’s transition to a low carbon energy system through the widespread use of low carbon gas. The report calls on Government to support the transition to a more flexible gas grid that uses various forms of gas including low carbon gases such as hydrogen and biomethane.

Power to gas (PTG) refers to the technology of converting power into energy-storage gas which can absorb excess power when there is excess power and release energy-storage gas when needed. Based on the carbon dioxide (CO2 ) emission of Karamay City in Northwest China this study designed a process flow of the CO2 absorption process and the hydrogen and CO2 methanation process in PTG technology. The results show that the efficiency of the CO2 absorption process was 91.5% and the methanation efficiency was 77.5%. The heat recovery module was set during the process and the total heat recovered was 17.85 MW. The cost of producing synthetic natural gas (SNG) in the PTG factory was 1782 USD/ton. In terms of cost the cost of hydrogen production from electrolyzed water accounted for the largest proportion. In terms of product profit the sale of pure oxygen was the largest part of the profit. At present the carbon emission reduction index profit brought by SNG production accounted for a small proportion. In the future with technological progress industrial upgrading and the improvement in the carbon trading market PTG technology is expected to become one of the ways to achieve carbon-emission-reduction targets.