A new report from the Climate Change Committee has asserted that while domestically produced electrolytic hydrogen is one route to meeting the UK’s predicted hydrogen demand to minimise import dependency risks, low carbon electricity has its highest value when displacing fossil generation.
The Delivering a reliable decarbonised power system report said that in prioritising the decarbonisation of the power grid, “green hydrogen produced from dedicated renewables projects should only be based on extra zero-carbon electricity capacity or from zero-carbon electricity sources where it is not possible to connect to the grid.”
Electricity decarbonisation would meet “core” demand from buildings and industry, as well as from highly efficient forms of electrification such as electric vehicles and heat pumps.
Green hydrogen will only begin to meet UK demand for the gas from 2035 onwards, the report also predicted.
According to the CCC the gap between hydrogen demands and domestic non-fossil hydrogen supply has the potential to be smaller by 2050 than in 2035, given the potential for the UK to increase domestic zero-carbon hydrogen production to be ramped up in the period post-2035.
Before 2025 blue hydrogen is expected to meet the majority of demand, before falling into a back-up role during the 2040s.
Due to a “faster increase” in renewable and nuclear generation as compared to electricity demand, green hydrogen will become dominant over blue hydrogen from the middle of the next decade.
“It is unlikely that any contributions from green hydrogen imports, or electricity imports for domestic green hydrogen, would remove the need for blue hydrogen on a 2035 timescale,” stated the report.
The report also said that offshore wind would be the most likely source of green electricity to supply electrolysers due to its high load factor and low levelised cost of energy.
“Green hydrogen produced from a dedicated source of offshore wind has been estimated to cost around £80/MWh in 2035 falling to around £70/MWh in 2050.
“In contrast, hydrogen produced from curtailed electricity is estimated to cost £46-53/MWh in 2035 and £42-50/MWh in 2050,” stated the report.