Jon André Løkke, CEO of Nel Hydrogen, opened Day 2 of H2Tech's H2Tech Solutions conference with a keynote talk about scaling up green, renewable hydrogen and how green hydrogen will outperform gray hydrogen.

At present, only 1% of the $150-billion hydrogen market of 70 million tpy comes from water electrolysis, Løkke explained. Around 80% of the renewable hydrogen market is focused on hydrogen for refineries and ammonia. However, there is a large growth potential for green hydrogen driven by increased focus on climate and renewable energy, decreasing electricity prices and decreasing electrolysis CAPEX. Nel Hydrogen foresees electrolyzer market potential of $20 billion/year within the existing hydrogen market alone.

The overall hydrogen market is set to grow by 8%, driven by demand for power generation and building and industrial heat, regulations to lower surplus demand for fuel, decreases in crude quality that will require from hydrogen for processing, electrification of the transport sector, and a switch from coal to hydrogen in certain industries.

"We as a [hydrogen] industry have addressed a lot of niche applications … but going forward, we see some significant, large, new markets, such as power-to-X, where you turn power into something, such as gas, and use it in steel, ammonia, methanol, mobility, and other applications." Løkke said. "These are new, green applications for renewable hydrogen."

 

Løkke reviewed the many and varied applications for green hydrogen, noting that all of them will require production costs to be capped to drive development. "Green hydrogen should not cost significantly more than fossil hydrogen," the CEO noted. "That is our company's responsibility to drive that development—to make green hydrogen competitive with fossil hydrogen."

Nel Hydrogen has set a cost target for green hydrogen production from large-scale electrolysis, using Nel equipment, of €1.50/kg by 2025. The company expects the achieve this cost target by leveraging dropping wind and solar energy costs. The cost of renewable energy powering electrolysis accounts for three-quarters of the cost of the renewable hydrogen production, and Nel Hydrogen expects the levelized cost of energy (LCOE) for solar photovoltaic and onshore wind to drop by 71% and 58%, respectively, by 2050.

Nel also plans to cut the CAPEX of its large-scale alkaline electrolyzers by > 40% to help reduce hydrogen production costs. By scaling up production at its Herøya manufacturing plant to around 2 GW/year and innovatively automating its production lines, Nel Hydrogen expects to cut its costs and improve its manufacturing efficiency, which will help make green hydrogen more competitive than fossil hydrogen.

 

 

Løkke also reviewed Nel Hydrogen's current projects, including its 20-MW green fertilizer project with Iberdrola in Spain, its planned project in Norway with Celsa and Statkraft to produce hydrogen for green steel production, electrolysis supply to a fossil fuel-free steel project in Sweden (HYBRIT), and other projects for mobility, transportation, refueling station and submarine life support applications.

H2Tech Solutions runs from May 18–19 and on demand for one year after the event. To view the entirety of Jon André Løkke's presentation, please visit www.H2-TechSolutions.com to view the event agenda and register for live and on-demand access to all speaker presentations. If you have already registered for the conference, please use the personalized link delivered to your email to access the conference platform and speaker presentations.