7
Discussion
Today, over 70 Mt yr −1 of hydrogen is produced globally. Hydrogen is used
as feedstock in the petrochemical industry, oil refining, and steel manufacturing.
About 75% of the hydrogen dedicated production is done by the steam reforming
of natural gas. 23% is produced from coal gasification while less than 2% is
produced from water electrolysis. The demand for hydrogen is expected to grow,
as in the future, it could be used in the transport, heat, and power sectors.
The decarbonisation of industry sectors that cannot be easily electrified can
be done by replacing hydrogen produced from fossil fuels by hydrogen produced
from renewable powered water electrolysis. This concept, consisting on associating a non-electrifiable industry sector with renewable energy, is described as
“sector coupling”.
The research work has shown that the APAC markets, with their renewable
energy technical potential, could fulfil their demand for renewable hydrogen. That
way, it would be possible to decarbonize the industry sectors falling under the
research scope.
Except for China for which the policy instruments are being reviewed, the
APAC markets are still providing substantial subsidies to promote the development of their renewable energy capacity. As a comparison, the European market
has recently seen a change in the policies with the drastic reduction or the discontinuity of renewable electricity production subsidies. This has led renewable
energy project developers to consider other ways of increasing the quality of
their revenue streams. In this context, some European renewable energy project
developers have integrated power-to-gas systems to their portfolio.
Electronic supplementary material The online version of this chapter
(https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-32642-5_7) contains supplementary material, which is
available to authorized users.
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH,
part of Springer Nature 2021
M. Jaunatre, Renewable Hydrogen, Business Analytics,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-32642-5_7
97
Discussion
Today, over 70 Mt yr −1 of hydrogen is produced globally. Hydrogen is used
as feedstock in the petrochemical industry, oil refining, and steel manufacturing.
About 75% of the hydrogen dedicated production is done by the steam reforming
of natural gas. 23% is produced from coal gasification while less than 2% is
produced from water electrolysis. The demand for hydrogen is expected to grow,
as in the future, it could be used in the transport, heat, and power sectors.
The decarbonisation of industry sectors that cannot be easily electrified can
be done by replacing hydrogen produced from fossil fuels by hydrogen produced
from renewable powered water electrolysis. This concept, consisting on associating a non-electrifiable industry sector with renewable energy, is described as
“sector coupling”.
The research work has shown that the APAC markets, with their renewable
energy technical potential, could fulfil their demand for renewable hydrogen. That
way, it would be possible to decarbonize the industry sectors falling under the
research scope.
Except for China for which the policy instruments are being reviewed, the
APAC markets are still providing substantial subsidies to promote the development of their renewable energy capacity. As a comparison, the European market
has recently seen a change in the policies with the drastic reduction or the discontinuity of renewable electricity production subsidies. This has led renewable
energy project developers to consider other ways of increasing the quality of
their revenue streams. In this context, some European renewable energy project
developers have integrated power-to-gas systems to their portfolio.
Electronic supplementary material The online version of this chapter
(https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-32642-5_7) contains supplementary material, which is
available to authorized users.
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH,
part of Springer Nature 2021
M. Jaunatre, Renewable Hydrogen, Business Analytics,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-32642-5_7
97