Could green hydrogen become a renewable energy niche in Scotland?

An energy specialist predicts Scotland has the potential to become a world leader in hydrogen powered by offshore wind.

Aquaterra Energy’s director of energy transition, commercial and strategy Anne Haase said Scotland’s experience in developing the oil and gas industry meant it could “do it again”, particularly for green hydrogen.

Scotland can exploit several niches. The country is among the world leaders in tidal energy. In addition, Scotland could also continue series production of floating offshore wind platforms.

She told Energy Voice: “Scotland is also a great place for demonstrations and new technologies,” Haase said. “There are approximately 300 different floating wind platform technologies on the market today.”

However, it is the production of green hydrogen that represents a lucrative opportunity for Scotland.

“The market opportunity for Scotland and hydrogen, particularly marine hydrogen, is absolutely enormous,” Haase said.

Scotland and the North East quickly built their oil and gas sector from scratch when hydrocarbons were first discovered.

“Scotland has been fantastic at exporting key skills to the energy sector,” Haase said. “Look how places like Aberdeen have taken over the oil and gas sector, particularly in deep water, and made it their own across the world.

“Scotland has the potential to do it again.”

© Provided by Aquaterra Energy

Countries around the world are preparing to take advantage of the energy transition. This means increased competition in the global market.

“Organizations have difficulty understanding where they are in the supply chain and when they should start investing in that particular supply chain,” Haase said. “Timing is absolutely everything.

“To build a truly effective supply chain and new market, you really need to understand your potential niches and what the future market will look like.

“Different countries have different skill sets and different supply chain capabilities.”

The potential of hydrogen

Much has been said about Scotland’s hydrogen potential as offshore wind farms power electrolyzers to produce green fuel for export.

Recently, German energy company RWE announced plans to build a green hydrogen production plant in Grangemouth, which could be operational by 2029.

Haase also mentioned two major projects in Scotland.

The £2.7 billion, 10 GW Hydrogen Backbone Link (HBL) of the Net Zero Technology Center (NZTC) will connect Scotland to Europe via the Flotta oil terminal in Orkney and the town of Emden in Germany, and from there a larger European hydrogen backbone network would connect Scotland with Europe and many countries across the continent.

In addition, HPL will connect facilities at Sullom Voe, Cromarty Firth and the St Fergus Gas Terminal in Aberdeenshire to the pipeline.

“This creates an entire infrastructure parallel to the sub-scene of the legacy oil and gas networks,” Haase said.

“We are expected to have significant offshore green hydrogen production close to the European hydrogen backbone.”

© Provided by NZTC

Following the first stage of HBL, additional hydrogen pipelines could be built to export 35 TWh of hydrogen from Scotland to Germany, and then increased between 2030 and 2045 to enable exports of up to 94 TWh of hydrogen.

The HBL project is accompanied by reports that Scotland could produce enough green hydrogen to meet up to 100% of Germany’s import needs by 2045 and 10% of Europe’s demand by the mid-2030s.

“Our focus is that we have huge potential to export green hydrogen from Scotland, not just to England but to Germany and Europe, where there is a natural center of demand,” Haase added.

Accelerating

While there are challenges in increasing wind farm capacity in Scotland and developing the pipeline network needed for transport, green hydrogen gives Scotland a lucrative position in Europe’s renewable energy sector.

“We see infrastructure emerging in the North Sea, we see support,” Haase said. “We also see grid constraints and a lack of grid connections – we see all this completely untapped offshore wind potential in Scotland.”

To some extent, the hydrogen market is still in its infancy. While the technology has been proven, licensing and regulatory issues and commercial challenges remain as developers have focused their wind projects on providing electricity rather than producing hydrogen.

“The challenges will be around supporting operators, understanding what the regulatory regime will be and what it would mean to actually operate a gas generation platform,” Haase said.

“These are some of the key issues that these groups need to be able to address together. But if you look at the timeline associated with these projects, you’re probably talking about first production in 2031-2032.”