Areas of application for hydrogen and their significance
From today's perspective, the use of hydrogen as an essential component in various sectors must be assessed with noticeably different probabilities of occurrence:
Transport
In transport, hydrogen will play a minor role from today's perspective. Technological advances in battery technology effectively rule out its use in individualised motorised transport. Electric propulsion in the form of trains, underground railways and trams has dominated public transport for decades, with hydrogen being used to a limited extent in trains. Battery solutions appear to be the more credible form of decarbonisation for buses and even trucks, although hydrogen could play a slightly more significant role here than in other means of transport.
Heating
The situation is similar when it comes to heating. Existing gas and oil heating systems will probably be replaced primarily by heat pumps. The idea of hydrogen flowing into households through local pipes instead of natural gas now seems unrealistic.
Industry
In industry, however, hydrogen will play an important role. For example, steel production can only be decarbonised in a meaningful way with hydrogen. Furthermore, so-called ‘process heat’ is required in many industrial applications. This is currently mostly generated by burning natural gas, and an electrically powered alternative is often not technically feasible.
Electricity
The most interesting question is what role hydrogen will play in electricity generation. We assume that the future electricity system will be dominated by the generation of cheap wind and solar power. In this system, there will be many periods with very high overproduction of electricity (such as windy summer days) and some with less renewable power generation.This balancing of ‘light breeze’ and ‘dark doldrums’ offers great economic potential.
Hydrogen can play a role here as a storage medium for balancing over time scales ranging from weeks to months. The energy that is effectively free during light breezes can be stored in hydrogen via electrolysis. This hydrogen is then burned in turbines to generate electricity and heat. Although this process is technically inefficient, it can be highly efficient from an economic point of view.
However, it should be noted that hydrogen is not the only method of achieving such a balance. Technological advances in batteries are enormous, and batteries are expected to become consistently more efficient and cheaper. Furthermore, maximum interconnection of energy producers leads to less variation in energy production over time. Finally, market mechanisms are very well suited to avoiding bottlenecks in energy demand. To avoid peak prices, industrial and domestic consumers are quite willing to reduce or shift their demand for electricity.