Hydrogen

In an interview with pv magazine, Indra Overland, head of the Center for Energy Research at the Norwegian Institute for International Affairs, explains how international hydrogen strategies may play out in the upcoming decades. Plans and roadmaps will not be enough to turn a hydrogen economy into reality and its success will depend on becoming cost-competitive vis-à-vis other solutions in several areas, he says.

Soon 2020 will only be a worry to future high-school history students. But when they ask us if anything good at all happened in 2020, remember this review and tell them that solar PV shone in the darkness. Despite the mess of it all, 2020 has been another good year for Australian solar. The industry has demonstrated resilience, and significant progress has been made in the fields of energy storage, green hydrogen and others.

Australian scientists have demonstrated two loss-mitigation techniques that could improve solar‐to‐hydrogen (STH) conversion efficiencies and may lay the ground for cheaper PV-powered hydrogen generation. By combining the two techniques, they were able to achieve an STH efficiency of around 19.4% at realistic operating temperatures.

With the joint-feasibility study between Australia and Germany into the viability of a renewable hydrogen supply chain between the two nations now underway, Western Australia, perhaps the most eager Australian state to establish a green hydrogen export industry, has hosted an inaugural roundtable with some of the two nations biggest industry hitters.

S&P Global Platts has recognised a little-known, self-funded Australian technology company with a prestigious Global Energy Award for its development of a hydrogen demand activator. Star Scientific chairman Andrew Horvath reveals how his company is making its market on the world stage …

Hydrogen demand in South Korea is expected to reach 17 million tonnes by 2050. An ambitious solar PV project in the heart of Queensland’s unconventional-gas country, plans to be an early green supplier of the manufacturing nation’s hydrogen needs.

The Climate Council has published a report to put the final nail in the outdated notion of gas as a transition fuel, and to nix the validity of a gas-led recovery.

Viva Energy Australia has signed memorandums of understanding with key industry partners would could see its Geelong oil refinery, currently struggling to transition to an LNG terminal, transition into an energy hub featuring solar and hydrogen.

Engie and ammonia producer Yara have published findings from their long-awaited feasibility study into the development of renewable hydrogen and ammonia at Yara’s Pilbara Fertilisers plant. The study has led to development plans for large-scale renewable hydrogen and ammonia development with the first phase, a 10 MW solar farm and electrolyser, already instigated.

The joint-feasibility study into green hydrogen production and trade between Australia and Germany has officially begun, work on what the German Federal Minister of Research has dubbed the “Wasserstoffbrücke,” or “hydrogen bridge”.