Harnessing the power of both hydrogen and electric power is key to achieving 2050 carbon net zero goals, argues TRL’s Dr Anthony Velazquez Abad…
With electricity dominating the future of green transportation, hydrogen has been an often-overlooked avenue for alternative green power solutions. However, hydrogen carries strong benefits that arguably make it a more realistic and viable solution in specific uses. Over the next decade, hydrogen will prove itself to be critical for the UK in reaching net zero by 2050 and will play an important role in decarbonising transport modes such as long-haul freight, rail, shipping and aviation.
Hydrogen becomes an important energy carrier when it is assessed in the context of the whole energy system, and its potential to support heating, energy storage and renewables, and industrial processes. If we consider the current and planned power generation capacity, it is unlikely that we will manage to electrify heating and the automotive sector within the timeframe leading up to 2050. It is for this vital reason that we believe hydrogen will play an important role in the transportation system alongside the integration of electric power.
It is common knowledge that hydrogen-powered vehicles are not as efficient as battery-electric vehicles, which gives the latter the leading edge when assessing the viability of both technologies. Yet it is worth noting that hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles can play a critical role to deliver near net zero (air quality and GHG emissions) for specific categories and duty cycles and energy pathways, a critical difference when assessing which technology can play the greatest role in reaching our net-zero 2050 target. However, providing the low-carbon hydrogen at the scale needed by the transport sector in the short-term will require the deployment of carbon capture and storage, but as the Hydrogen Taskforce states, there are no major technical hurdles to develop a blue hydrogen production sector.
At TRL, we believe that the combination of both technologies will yield the best chance we have of reaching our 2050 net zero target. We must identify where hydrogen offers strengths over electric and capitalise on its adoption much like we have done for electric vehicles. For example, hydrogen fuel-cells present several advantages over batteries including a lower use of critical materials and having the most cost-efficient end-of-life management approach. The possibility of refuelling in a similar time to conventional vehicles while also having a lower impact on vehicle payload for long-distance road haulage makes hydrogen fuel cells a more viable possibility in real-world applications.
Ultimately, a combination of methods is often the most efficient way to solve a problem. This is also the case here: if we are to achieve our 2050 net zero target, further development and adoption of green transportation must be realised. Electric power is a fantastic route to green transport, but we will be considerably more likely to reach our net zero goal if we can harness the benefits of both electric and hydrogen power together.
