The past 18 months have seen the launch of national hydrogen strategies in France, Germany [1], the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, and Spain. The UK will release its strategy in the next month and Austria, Estonia, and Sweden will announce their positions later in 2021. Japan launched its hydrogen strategy [2] in 2017, the first in the world, while Australia, Canada, Chile, and the United States did likewise in 2020 and 2021. There are many differences in emphasis among these countries’ strategies. Some explicitly favour green hydrogen while other are agnostic. Some contain detailed electrolyser capacity targets and milestones while others do not. Some, notably Japan and Germany are import focused, while others, including Australia, Canada and Norway, target exports.
Despite these differences, they share many features, including the focus of hydrogen on the hard to abate sectors such as heavy transport, chemical feedstock, industrial heat, and marine and aviation fuel. These strategies all commit government support for the production and end use of hydrogen for deep decarbonisation. They all facilitate the roll-out of hydrogen infrastructure in one way or another, including filling stations, gas grid injection points, hydrogen-based steel production, and large-scale electrolysers. Most importantly, they signal the intent of these countries to pursue hydrogen as a decarbonisation pathway beyond 2030, and to reap the rewards of being among the first movers.
Within Europe, green hydrogen is the preferred production pathway. The synergies with large-scale deployment of increasingly cheap variable renewable power sources like onshore and wind and solar are obvious. Ireland is endowed with more wind and wave resources than we could ever hope to use domestically, so there might be a temptation to ask “if our EU neighbours have developed their own green hydrogen strategies, why not simply copy their templates rather than develop our own?”. To go down this route is to miss the fundamental difference in the hydrogen landscape between Ireland and elsewhere in northwest Europe: existing hydrogen demand.
In April 2021, the International Energy Agency (IEA) published a report on the prospects for hydrogen in northwest Europe [3]. The only country in the region that was excluded from the analysis was Ireland. There are a few potential reasons for this including the facts that Ireland is not presently represented in the IEA Hydrogen platform, and the country has no stated position on hydrogen. What is most striking about the IEA report is the fact that in the 7 seven countries studied, total hydrogen demand exceeds 6 million tonnes per year. Until 2025 at the earliest, the vast majority of green (or blue) hydrogen brought to market in these countries will go towards meeting that large existing demand, displacing carbon-intensive grey hydrogen. This existing demand significantly re-risks investment in green hydrogen investments in Ireland’s near neighbours. In contrast, Ireland consumes around 2,000 tonnes of hydrogen annually, roughly equivalent to the output of a single 12-MW electrolyser. Where will the demand in Ireland come from? The strategies for Germany, the Netherlands and France will not fit in Ireland.
In short, the Government of Ireland needs to step in and stimulate demand for green hydrogen. In the absence of a major existing demand in refining, fertilisers, petrochemicals, or the kinds of heavy industry found else in northwest Europe, Ireland needs to think hard about where best to incentivise hydrogen uptake. Ireland is unusually dependent on road, marine and air transport. Hydrogen deployment in these sectors should be encouraged. What Ireland lacks in factories, it more than makes up for in data centres. Hydrogen could be incentivised as a way to decarbonise the on-site power generation increasingly required by hyperscale data centres. We can turn Ireland’s difference to our advantage. Put simply, Ireland’s hydrogen challenge is one of demand, while our northwest European neighbours face one of supply. Green hydrogen could be a major Irish export. Finally, we need to think big and long-term, just as our dairy farmers did over the past decades. What started as milk exports, evolved to cheese and yogurt, and is now higher value niche products. Ireland’s dairy farmers moved up the value chain. How can Ireland’s wind farmers and hydrogen farmers do likewise?
It all starts with a plan. Until Ireland announces its intentions on hydrogen, we will remain outside the mainstream of this booming sector. The world has woken up to the need to plan for hydrogen deployment at scale. Will Ireland join the revolution and develop a National Hydrogen Strategy?
Dr Rory Monaghan, NUI Galway, Hydrogen Ireland Board Member
- https://www.bmwi.de/Redaktion/EN/Publikationen/Energie/the-national-hydrogen-strategy.html
- https://www.meti.go.jp/english/press/2017/1226_003.html
- https://www.iea.org/reports/hydrogen-in-north-western-europe
