Green Hydrogen and its Advantages in the EV industry
Among the clean energy source, Green Hydrogen is the one that is gaining a lot of attention.
Such that a lot of Green Hydrogen Startups have emerged that are researching different techs like hydrogen production, storage, and even vehicles.
The reason being is that big nations like China and India are publicly promoting the adoption of Green Hydrogen to use in multiple industries that are emitting the most carbon such as transportation, chemical, steel, etc.
In Feb 2022, China announced its long-term hydrogen plan that includes a goal to produce 100,000 to 200,000 tons of renewable-based hydrogen annually and have a fleet of 50,000 hydrogen-fueled vehicles by 2025.
And in Mar 2022, the Indian Government announced the use of Green Hydrogen, and with this push, the big Indian conglomerate also announced investments in the technology.
Mr. Mukesh Ambani (Reliance) is boldly investing $75 billion in both blue and green hydrogen. Adani Group also announced an investment of $70 billion into renewable energy and aims to produce the cheapest hydrogen on earth.
In this race, even TATA is already looking to build buses with Hydrogen fuel cell technology.
Now the question is:
Why Green Hydrogen is gaining traction? And how it is different from other hydrogen fuels?
To put it straight, hydrogen production happens in many ways. And based on the method and the source of its production hydrogen is categorized into four major categories.
The first type is gray hydrogen which is produced by breaking down methane and coal through a process called steam methane reforming.
Then we have blue hydrogen which is exactly like gray hydrogen but in this case, 95% of the carbon byproduct is actually captured stored, and reused.
Then we have the third type which is turquoise hydrogen which is produced by a process called pyrolysis. Lastly, we have green hydrogen which is produced using renewable energy, and the process to get this hydrogen is a process called electrolysis.
As you can see clearly green hydrogen as the name suggests is the cleanest form of hydrogen wherein there is no carbon byproduct at all.
Now the misconception that people have over here is that when we say hydrogen fuel most people think hydrogen is a source but in reality, hydrogen is an energy carrier and not an energy source.
That means if you look at the production of green hydrogen, first, there will be a solar power plant that will actually produce electricity. Then this electricity is used to conduct electrolysis and as this current passes through water which is H2O, H2O splits into hydrogen and oxygen and then this hydrogen is stored and then used to dissipate energy.
Now, this begs the question that electrolysis has been there for decades, then why are we talking about green hydrogen electrolysis now and not 15 years back.
That’s because although electrolysis was there the cost of production of energy through renewable energy was very very high.
If you look at this graph you will know how much the renewable energy sector has actually changed in the past 10 years.
The showcases how the cost of producing electricity from various sources.
You will see that from 2009 to 2019 well the cost of producing electricity from coal has decreased by just 2 percent from a hundred and eleven dollars to 109 dollars per megawatt-hour.
The cost of nuclear has increased by 26 percent from 123 dollars to 155 whereas the cost of onshore wind has dropped by 70 going from 135 to just 41 and the cost of solar has decreased by 89 going from 359 dollars to just 40 dollars per megawatt-hour.
So for the first time in human history, renewable energy source looks way cheaper than fossil fuels. And in the next 10 years, this cost is expected to drop further from 40 dollars in solar to maybe even less than five dollars.
This is a reason why suddenly electrolysis looks like a feasible process to carry out with renewable energy production now the question we hear is why do we need green hydrogen and what is the problem that hydrogen fuel will solve for the Indian economy.
Well if you look at the industry-specific application for green hydrogen it is almost super important for three major industries steel, transportation, and chemical industry.
So let’s start with the first industry which is transportation:
Here let’s take the first factor which is the range and volume occupancy. An EV with an advanced lithium-ion battery could achieve a 400-to-500-kilometer range but these batteries would take up 400 to 600 liters of space which is absolutely enormous. Whereas the fuel cell plus hydrogen storage tank would take up less than 50 percent of the space.
And in the next five years, considering the advancement in the hydrogen economy, hydrogen tanks, and storage, it would occupy only 100 liters and can give you a kilometer range of 480 to 500 kilometers which means four times less occupancy of space for the same range as lithium-ion.
Secondly, hydrogen fuel cells have an energy-to-weight ratio that is 10 times greater than lithium-ion batteries. This means if you want to add more range to a vehicle it is very easy to add to hydrogen cells but lithium-ion batteries are so heavy that if you want to add range you will need to increase the size of the battery which will increase the weight of the vehicle.
So, after a certain point, li-ion batteries will become counterproductive.
Then we have the third factor which is charging time.
If you look at Tesla Model S, it can give you a 400-kilometer range with 30 mins of charging and if it is a regular AC charger it will take up to 4 hours.
But when it comes to hydrogen fuel, even a semi-truck that has a payload of 34 tons and a 400-kilometer range gets recharged in just eight minutes.
So if you see when it comes to passenger vehicles it might not make that much of a difference but when it comes to commercial vehicles these advantages are a massive game-changer.
Why?!
Because if you look at the modes of transportation on a graph wherein you plot weight versus mileage you will see that EVs are suitable for upto a weight of 10 tons and a range of 160 kilometers per day.
But as soon as you look at heavy utility vehicles like fleets and taxis, it becomes very difficult to use EVs both due to limitations of range and charging time.
A taxi driver cannot stop and charge his vehicle for 4 hours or drive only 150 kilometers a day right whereas when it comes to hydrogen cells they are so productive that their applications extend all the way to buses with a range of 400 200 kilometers a day and a weight of 50 to 80 tons to trucks with 100 to 130 tons of weight and 800 to 1000 kilometer range to even trains up to one thousand tons and one thousand kilometer range and beyond.
Due to some of these reasons hydrogen Fuel Cells have the potential to revolutionize the transportation industry of the world and save hundreds of millions of tons of carbon emissions every single year.
Further, we have the shipping and the aviation industry which will need synthetic hydrogen-based fuels which are a little far away from reality.
This is the reason why hydrogen fuel cells are super important because they cater to heavy-duty loads that Li-ion battery EVs cannot deliver for commercial or passenger transportation.