The Australian government has released the new National Hydrogen Strategy to guide industry and regulators on the best use of hydrogen to help Australia reach its legislated decarbonisation commitments and contribute to Australia's ambition to be a renewable energy export superpower.
The CSIRO has significant expertise in both hydrogen and economic modelling, and used both skillsets to provide information to the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water as they developed the new strategy.
So how can hydrogen help Australia to reach net zero emissions?
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How is hydrogen made?
Dr Sarb Giddey, Group Leader (Thermal and Electrochemical Technologies Group), CSIRO
Australia and other countries already make a lot of hydrogen mainly for use in ammonia production and petrochemicals processes. Most hydrogen production currently uses natural gas as the feedstock, so we call it 'non-renewable hydrogen'. The processes for making hydrogen from natural gas or other fossil fuels results in carbon dioxide as a byproduct. Carbon capture, utilisation and storage technologies can be used to stop the carbon dioxide from being released into the atmosphere, and this has been demonstrated in a limited number of cases globally.
Hydrogen can also be produced by electrolysing water using an electrolyser. The electrolyser splits water into hydrogen and oxygen, a process that requires a lot of electricity (around 55kWh per kilogram of hydrogen produced). If the electricity comes from renewable sources, such as wind or solar, then we call the hydrogen 'renewable hydrogen' or 'green hydrogen'.
How can hydrogen contribute to Australia’s economy and decarbonisation goals?
Dr Sarb Giddey, Group Leader (Thermal and Electrochemical Technologies Group), CSIRO
When hydrogen is burned to produce heat, or converted to electricity in a fuel cell, there are no carbon emissions. So renewable hydrogen can be used to reduce climate change impacts in many different ways. For example:
- Ammonia is used around the world as a fertiliser. Using renewable hydrogen instead of non-renewable hydrogen to make ammonia would greatly reduce emissions.
- Renewable hydrogen can be used as both a chemical reductant and source of heat to reduce coal use in iron and steel making plants.
Gurpreet Kaur measuring the dimensional thermal expansion of ceramic cells. - Renewable hydrogen could also replace non-renewable hydrogen for its other current uses, for example as a feedstock to produce methanol (a platform chemical that can be used to make various other useful compounds).
- Renewable hydrogen can be used to firm electricity networks. We can use abundant renewable energy to produce hydrogen, and then convert that hydrogen back into electricity later when the sun isn't shining and the wind isn't blowing.
- Renewable hydrogen burners could replace natural gas burners in heavy industry, reducing carbon emissions from alumina refineries, cement kilns, and other industries where very high temperatures are required.
- Hydrogen powered vehicles could replace fossil fuels like petrol and diesel in heavy transport, greatly reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Ships and planes could even be powered by hydrogen-derived fuels such as ammonia and sustainable aviation fuel.
Because of the various ways that renewable hydrogen can be used for decarbonisation, many countries around the world are putting significant effort into expanding its use. But most of these countries don't have the huge solar and wind potential that Australia has, and so they are looking to import hydrogen from countries like Australia. Thus, Australia also has the opportunity to produce hydrogen, or derivatives of hydrogen such as ammonia, and export it.
If hydrogen is so great, why aren't we doing it already?
Dr Dietmar Tourbier, Energy Research Unit Director, CSIRO
Work is underway to address technical challenges so that hydrogen can be an integral part of Australia's energy transition. Some of the key challenges are:
- Cost and efficiency: it takes a lot of renewable energy to make renewable hydrogen. Australia is rapidly increasing renewable energy production, and researchers around the world are working to make electrolysers that are cheaper and more efficient, so that they need less electricity. Refer to the National Hydrogen Strategy section 2.2.
- Storage: hydrogen is a very small, light molecule so it has some unique storage challenges. Hydrogen can be stored as a compressed gas, as a cryogenic liquid, in the form of chemical derivatives like ammonia, or even within a solid structure. There is a lot of research underway to ensure the integrity and safety of hydrogen storage whilst reducing cost. See National Hydrogen Strategy section 2.3.
- Infrastructure: we will need pipes, storage tanks, hydrogen transport trucks and port facilities to move hydrogen from where it is made to where it is used. For example, there are less than ten hydrogen refuelling stations in Australia at the time of writing, and this would need to greatly increase if we are to transport goods around the country in hydrogen-powered vehicles.
- Safety and regulation: hydrogen is easily combustible, so it's very important to make sure our safety systems and regulations protect the community. Government and industry are working together to review and update legislation – see section 4.3 of the National Hydrogen Strategy
- Skills: as the industry grows, we will need more people who are knowledgeable about hydrogen to run and maintain the hydrogen production plants, storage and distribution, terminals, refuelling stations and so on. Universities and training centres are already developing upskilling opportunities for Australians to make the most of this aspect of the energy transition, as mentioned in the National Hydrogen Strategy section 2.5.
What impact will the new National Hydrogen Strategy have?
Dr Patrick Hartley, Hydrogen Industry Mission leader, CSIRO
The goal of any government strategy is to provide guidance to government departments, industry and service providers about where to focus their efforts
Australia's first National Hydrogen Strategy, released in 2019, highlighted a range of export and domestic opportunities. Since then, governments and the private sector have made significant investments in a broad range of hydrogen applications.
As global competition intensifies, the challenge now is for Australia to focus on the most prospective applications and effectively scale its hydrogen industry investments and policies.
Sharing knowledge and research that works through this challenge will help to inform, catalyse and prioritise the plans and activities of potential producers, transporters and users, and developers of hydrogen infrastructure.
What did CSIRO do to contribute to the National Hydrogen Strategy?
Dr Patrick Hartley, Hydrogen Industry Mission leader
CSIRO was commissioned to complete several study packages for the National Hydrogen strategy team within the federal Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (DCCEEW). They used our findings, as well as work done by themselves and other organisations, as input into the National Hydrogen Strategy.
We also represented the hydrogen research and development sector as a member of the DCCEEW's National Hydrogen Strategy Advisory Group.
The questions our studies addressed were:
1. How hydrogen could contribute to Australia's net zero goals and the economy
Our team used an Australian version of a highly regarded international whole-of-economy model, to produce projections on how much hydrogen should be produced, and where it could best be used, to meet Australia's net zero future targets.
The modelling was used to assess a range of hydrogen production and use scenarios based on potential for emissions reduction and minimising cost. It identified the most prospective uses in certain industry sectors, such as ammonia production, minerals processing, and heavy mobility.
The modelling showed that hydrogen technologies can play an important role in meeting Australia's decarbonisation commitments and in realising the government's ambition of becoming a renewable energy export superpower.
2. Opportunities for Australian research and development in hydrogen
Our researchers reviewed literature and interviewed numerous stakeholders to determine Australia's strengths in hydrogen research, priority technologies for development, and opportunities for supporting Australia's research and innovation pipeline.
We found that hydrogen research, in Australia's universities and organisations such as the CSIRO, is helping to progress the country's interests in this space. We also found that more support for technologies as they progress from low to high technology readiness level, would help to bring research and development through to manufacturing and commercial application. In particular, we identified a number of key technologies across the export, heavy industry and heavy road mobility sectors, as well as underpinning systems for large-scale hydrogen production and storage. We found that these technologies could create potential for Australian manufacturing, however, further investigation is required.
3. Heavy Road Freight Decarbonisation
Our team produced a targeted piece of analysis using the Transport Network Strategic Investment Tool (TraNSIT) tool to understand the emissions footprint of Australia's heavy road freight that may be difficult to decarbonise via electrification.
This work highlighted that alternative technologies such as hydrogen fuel cell vehicles or low / zero emission fuels have a clear role to play in the decarbonisation of Australia's articulated heavy road freight alongside battery electric vehicles.
4. Fuel security and hydrogen cost analyses
The Government also used some of our other research as input to the strategy. This included our assessment of the risks and benefits to Australia's energy security from exports of clean energy, including hydrogen; and some modelling of the future costs of renewable hydrogen against hydrogen from natural gas.
The CSIRO acknowledges the new National Hydrogen Strategy as a guide for expanding Australia's hydrogen industry, to help address climate change.