What is needed to deliver carbon-neutral heat using hydrogen and CCS?

Abstract

In comparison with the power sector, large scale decarbonisation of heat has received relatively little attention at the infrastructural scale despite its importance in the global CO2 emissions landscape. In...

A Review of Inorganic Photoelectrode Developments and Reactor Scale‐Up Challenges for Solar Hydrogen Production

“…A recent study on the requirements for carbon neutral heating in the UK from hydrogen estimated a 55 GW production capacity. [ 291 ] Encouragingly, our estimate here of ≈264 TWh, for the colder half of the year, is equivalent to ≈60 GW, and is therefore in close agreement with their estimate. This energy can be converted using the gross calorific value of natural gas (≈40 MJ m −3 ) [ 292 ] to the volume of natural gas required (≈22.5 bcm).…”

Sector coupling via hydrogen to lower the cost of energy system decarbonization

“…The main cost and performance parameters of H 2 generation and G2P technologies are summarized in Table 2, which include electrolysis, natural gas fueled SMR with and without CCS (90% capture), stationary fuel cell, and H 2 fueled CCGT. Similar to other studies 5,7,18 focused on electrolyzer-grid interactions, we approximate electrolyzer lifetime as a fixed parameter (10 years shown in Table 2) rather than as a model variable that depends on electrolyzer operation. This approach does not account for the impact of use-dependent degradation of electrolyzer systems.…”

“…With the above motivation, a number of studies have expanded the scope of traditional power sector capacity expansion models (CEM) to endogenize investment decisions in end-use technologies, which include some parts of the H supply chain, notably electrolytic H 2 production. These studies highlight the potential for flexible electricity consumption in other end-uses to partially substitute the need for energy storage in the electricity sector and alter generation mix in the power sector towards increasing VRE deployment [18][19][20][21] . While these studies are inspiring, the interactions between the H 2 supply chain and the power sector, in many of the studies, exclude critical components in the H 2 supply chain.…”

Inefficient investments as a key to narrowing regional economic imbalances

“…This reduces the cost of CO 2 capture, thereby allowing an economical capture rate of up to 95 - 98%. This notwithstanding, our analysis assumes a lower bound capture rate of 90%, in line with similar techno-economic assessments ( Antonini et al., 2020 ; Sunny et al., 2020 ).…”

“…For these reasons and given the widespread availability of natural gas infrastructure in Europe, we adopt ATR-CCS as the archetypal hydrogen production technology in the near-to-medium term. Figure S1 presents a schematic overview of the ATR processes adopted in the analysis, techno-economic parameters for the reference ATR-CCS plants are taken from Sunny et al., and are summarized in Table S1 ( Sunny et al., 2020 ).…”