At the end of July 2024, the German government published its long-awaited hydrogen import strategy – at least that is what the document’s official title suggests. However, strategic pronouncements are virtually nowhere to be found. The mechanical engineering association VDMA calls it, appropriately, a “good summary.” For anyone who wants to gain an overview of the regulations, funding and initiatives that are relevant for the import of H2 to Germany, the 38-page “import strategy” offers a comprehensive roundup. Nevertheless, on the positive side, it’s worth noting that many strategic decisions have already been taken and are now reflected in the official import strategy, for instance the plans for the core hydrogen network.
According to a report by the European Court of Auditors (see p. 10), Germany is also the only EU member state that actually has an import strategy for hydrogen. Assuming that Germany will need between 95 and 130 terawatt-hours of hydrogen and derivatives by 2030, of which 50 to 70 percent is to be sourced from abroad, this is indeed good news.
On July 22, 2024, the transmission system operators submitted a draft application to the BNetzA to build the envisaged H2 core grid. With a planned total length of 9,666 km (6,006 mi), it will predominantly consist of converted natural gas pipelines (about 60 percent). The Doing Hydrogen route that was intended as a new construction line in the draft from November 2023 and was supposed to connect the former West Berlin is missing, however. This change was particularly criticized in the capital region.
The industry and trade chambers of the German state of Brandenburg announced in a statement in August 2024 that the “planned rapid conversion of the OPAL line coming from Lubmin (Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, MV) to hydrogen is expressly welcomed.” However, the deletion of the line section from Glasewitz (MV) to Ketzin (Brandenburg) was criticized and an absolutely necessary revision of the core grid application was called for.
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As essential reasons for consideration the IHK cited, among other things, the “threat to all project development activities in the area of hydrogen in the northern and western Brandenburg regions,” which also includes, for example, a planned 130-MW electrolysis plant at the Falkenhagen (Prignitz) location. In addition, there are already numerous renewable energy systems in the region of interest that would have to be regularly curtailed due to existing network bottlenecks. Making use of the regulated renewable electricity by producing hydrogen is therefore absolutely essential in order to minimize redispatch costs.
The two-week consultation period ended on August 6, 2024, so no later than two months after submitting the application documents will approval of the final core grid occur on the side of the BNetzA. The first lines are to be converted to hydrogen as early as next year.
Auditors consider targets to be unclear and unrealistic
The EU has set itself overly ambitious targets in its hydrogen strategy for 2030. This was the conclusion made by the auditors of the ECA in a special report published July 2024. They are now calling for an adaption of the strategy and better controlling.
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In the summer, the European Court of Auditors (ECA) presented a special report entitled “The EU’s industrial policy on renewable hydrogen.” On the 106 pages, including appendix, the auditors examine the European Commission’s plans, legislation and measures to date. One of the issues here is the lack of consistency. The auditors already criticize many ambiguities and contradictions in the definition of the objectives of the EU plans: The EU hydrogen strategy, for example, mentions 40 GW of installed electrolysis capacity by 2030, with which 4.4 megatonnes of hydrogen is to be produced. According to a working document of the REPowerEU Plan, this electrolysis power is to rather supply 6.6 megatonnes of hydrogen. With the production target of 10 Mt for the year 2030 neither value matches.
The auditors also cite a number of demand estimates for the year 2030. Basing on EU regulations, these would amount to between 3.8 and 10.5 Mt. Most, however, lie significantly under 10 Mt. For a majority of the 20 Mt envisaged in the REPowerEU Plan – 10 Mt from Europe, 10 Mt imported – there are therefore no customers.
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Also the derivation of the objectives stands on too weak legs for the auditors: For the 40 GW target, they essentially see a paper by the industry association Hydrogen Europe as the source. The production target set in the first EU hydrogen strategy of 10 Mt is mainly derived from the demand for fossil hydrogen in 2020.
In the market, the uncertainty is mainly in the form of the well-known chicken-and-egg problem: No industrial company will bank on hydrogen if it is not safely available, and nobody wants to invest in expensive infrastructure before customers are ready. “A vicious circle,” deduced the ECA in its press release. Necessary would be state-supported investments. But how expensive the switch to hydrogen could be and how much public money is available for it the EU Commission also does not have a complete overview, according to the auditors. Even the available EU funding for the development of the hydrogen economy could only be estimated, because they are scattered across several programs. To 18.8 million euros for the period 2021 to 2027 came the auditors.
Not everyone is pulling in the same direction That the member states have different ambitions that do not always coincide with those of the EU does not make it any easier. The ECA has identified four countries in which currently almost 80 percent of the electrolyzer capacity is to be installed: Germany, Spain, France and the Netherlands. There, the proportion of difficult to decarbonize industrial sectors is high and the hydrogen projects are comparatively advanced. At the same time, a large proportion of EU funding goes to these countries.
That the hydrogen potential of the entire EU will be exhausted for it there is no guarantee – nor that this hydrogen will then reach the countries with high industrial demand. Only a few of the possible export countries have already submitted plans for this. A concrete import strategy (see p. 7) is only given for Germany.
However, the auditors also attest that the European Commission has taken many right steps. In particular, it has created an almost complete legal framework within a short space of time. It has thus provided the legal certainty that is necessary for the new market. In addition, it has also done everything in its power to expedite approvals.
“Which industries does the EU want to keep?” The ECA is providing the EU with a series of recommendations to be implemented by the end of 2025. Already the first packs a punch: After a “reality check,” the Commission should “make strategic choices…. without creating new strategic dependencies.” The power of this statement the auditors conceal within parentheses in a subitem: “Which industries does the EU want to keep and at what price?” The following must be taken into account: EU funding is limited and the Commission must decide in which parts of the value chain it will have the greatest impact. “The EU should decide on the strategic path to carbon neutrality without compromising the competitive situation of its key industries or creating new strategic dependencies,” says Stef Blok, the ECA member responsible for the audit. That there is no perfect way to do this and it is not about avoiding imports per se is clear from the wording in the German press release. You have to consciously make geopolitical trade-offs, specified Blok. To avoid are “very large dependencies for basic products.”
The other recommendations are much more technical: The Commission should define and monitor a roadmap, gain an overview of the national financing, give the member states momentum in project approval and coordinate better with industry.
Stef Blok is a member of the European Court of Auditors and was responsible for the audit as part of the special report.
References: Special report: https://www.eca.europa.eu/ECAPublications/SR-2024-11/SR-2024-11_EN.pdf
Many of the technologies for H2 transport are not yet fully developed. Researchers and industry are working to develop safe H2 distribution over long distances, also because Germany will be dependent on H2 imports on a large scale. In addition to ammonia, liquid organic hydrogen carriers (LOHC) have a good chance of being employed in projects and industry. Because they could use the conventional infrastructure of oil tanks and tankers.
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The abbreviation LOHC stands for liquid organic hydrogen carriers. In this, hydrogen is chemically and reversibly bound to a liquid organic carrier substance. That can be toluene, benzyltoluene or dibenzyltoluene, for example. LOHCs describe organic compounds that can absorb and release hydrogen and can therefore be used as storage media for hydrogen. All compounds used are liquid under normal conditions and have similar properties to crude oil and its derivatives. The advantage: LOHCs can be used in liquid form in the existing infrastructure.
Normally, hydrogen is produced in gaseous form at a high pressure of 700 bar or in liquid form and stored and transported at extreme temperatures of minus 253 °C in special containers. Both methods, however, are technically complex and expensive. LOHCs offer an attractive alternative here. One advantage: The direct use of an LOHC, for example in fuel cells to generate electricity, makes the handling of hydrogen as a gas unnecessary. “The technology therefore enables a particularly inexpensive and reliable supply to mobile and stationary energy consumers,” states Daniel Teichmann, CEO and founder of Hydrogenious.
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LOHCs could simplify H2 transport over long distances, Source: Projektträger Jülich
Reuse of carrier medium This technology uses little or no fossil fuels. They can be used again and again as in a closed circuit. The process works in two phases: During hydrogenation, the hydrogen is bound to liquid organic hydrogen carriers in the presence of a catalyst, and during H2 release, so dehydrogenation, the gas is released again using heat and a catalyst. The loaded carrier liquid can be stored at ambient pressure and uncooled. For the transport, conventional oil tanks and tankers can therefore be used. When the hydrogen is released, however, the discharged carrier liquid must be returned to the place where it was loaded with hydrogen. Specifically, this means: The ship or tanker would drive in circles fully loaded.
LOHCs are therefore a great hope for H2 transport over long distances. The project TransHyDE on Helgoland is researching, for example, the entire transport chain from the binding of hydrogen to an LOHC through to separation. Currently, the projects are only being implemented on an experimental or small-scale basis.
What is certain, however, is that any form of storage and transport of hydrogen, ammonia, LOHC and other hydrogen-based energy carriers also requires suitable framework conditions. TransHyDE is therefore analyzing the systemic framework and identifying design requirements. The results will then lead to recommendations for action. These include the need to adapt standards, norms and certification options for hydrogen storage and transport technologies.
LOHC technology is also part of the German government’s new hydrogen acceleration law: Because national hydrogen production takes place both through systems for the electrolytic production of hydrogen and through the splitting and dehydrogenation of ammonia and hydrogenated liquid organic hydrogen carriers. The coalition agreement and the update of the national hydrogen strategy provide for the doubling of the national expansion target for electrolysis capacity from 5 to at least 10 GW by 2030.
But that won’t be nearly enough. Germany will need H2 imports. LOHCs could play an important role in this. The new national ports strategy (Nationale Hafenstrategie, NHS) was developed in close conjunction with the implementation of the national hydrogen strategy. In the NHS, the German government assumes that up to 70 percent of hydrogen demand will be covered by imports by 2030, which will mainly occur by ship.
Carrier material benzyltoluene The LOHC technology from Hydrogenious could be particularly interesting for the maritime transport of hydrogen: Because it uses the existing infrastructure for liquid fuels in the ports and can be transported by tankers or barges. This is entirely in line with the national ports strategy, which aims to create sustainable concepts for the reuse of conventional infrastructure.
Hydrogenious employs the flame-resistant thermal oil benzyltoluene as a carrier medium. According to the company, this enables efficient storage, especially in densely populated port areas (e.g. Rotterdam, see p. 17). Hydrogen stored in an LOHC can be handled at ambient temperature and pressure and has a hazard potential comparable to diesel, describes Andreas Lehmann, Chief Strategy Officer at Hydrogenious LOHC.
The company believes that LOHCs eliminate the shortcomings of existing methods. These are less flammable and cheaper to transport than liquid hydrogen, which is highly explosive, highly vaporizing and requires expensive containers and a new, special infrastructure. The recovered hydrogen also has a high purity, unlike after the reconversion of methanol.
Patrick Schühle works on LOHCs at Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Source: FAU
The company Hydrogenious from Erlangen, Germany also participates in various research projects: In the project LOReley, experts from industry and research want to optimize the process of H2 release, so the dehydration. “To release the hydrogen requires reaction accelerators, so catalysts, and temperatures of up to 330 degrees Celsius,” states researcher Dr. Patrick Schühle from the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU, see Fig. 3). Heat must be supplied to the process all the time. “The less heat you have to provide for the process, the more efficient the entire LOHC technology becomes, because you save energy,” he states.
LOReley developing a plate reactor Until now, for dehydration, a reactor with tubes into which pellets measuring just a few millimeters were poured was used. The pellets consist of porous aluminum oxide in which the actual active metal platinum is deposited. When the hydrogen-loaded LOHC comes into contact with the pellets, the H2 is released. The researchers of project LOReley have now chosen a new approach and are relying on a plate reactor based on heat exchangers that are otherwise familiar from heating systems, refrigerators or industrial plants.
Another advantage over the previous procedure, the scientists believe, is that the catalyst is firmly attached to the plate. “In the bulk reactor, the pellets can rub against each other and the catalyst may be rubbed off as a powder. In Project LOReley, we have now developed a catalytic layer that is highly resistant to mechanical abrasion and vibrations,” states chemical engineer Schühle.
In this plate dehydration unit, hydrogen was released, Source: Hydrogenious LOHC
In the project, the experts tested the new catalyst reactor concept in the laboratory and on the premises of the participating company Hydrogenious LOHC Technologies, an FAU spin-off. The new plate reactor ran stably for around 1,000 hours. It was also shown that the hydrogen release rate within 15 minutes was able to be doubled. “The heat is not brought comparatively slowly over the entire volume of the reactor, but rather specifically and directly to the catalyst layer,” says Schühle. This flexibility in dynamic operation is certainly relevant in gas power plants or in ship transport.
Schühle and colleagues were able to test their approach on a comparatively small scale. The reactor consisted of ten plates. In the next step, the demonstrator must grow so that it can be used in real operation at a location where the hydrogen is also needed. Only then can they say how good the reactor is in terms of thermal efficiency compared to the standard reactor. LOHCs offer many opportunities. Whether all hopes can be fulfilled the LOReley project, but also the technology as a whole, still needs to be demonstrated.
Transport by ship is 20 percent more expensive According to an analysis by Aurora Energy Research, transports by ship to Germany are generally at least 20 percent more expensive than pipeline transport: Accordingly, liquefied hydrogen from Spain comes to 4.35 euros and from Morocco to 4.58 euros per kilogram. If transported using liquid organic hydrogen carriers (LOHCs) or ammonia, it would be around 4.57 euros per kilogram from Spain and around 4.70 euros from Morocco, including the costs of converting it back into gaseous hydrogen in Germany. For imports from Australia and Chile, ship transport is generally the only option. They will only reach competitiveness if the hydrogen is transported as ammonia. Then, the costs are 4.84 or 4.86 euros per kg. All of these values are within the range of production costs in Germany. So it would depend on the specific individual case as to which path is competitive. For hydrogen from the United Arab Emirates, the cheapest transport would also be in the form of ammonia; however, at 5.36 euros per kilogram, this would not be competitive in comparison to domestic production.
Online marketplace brings together supply and demand
Like a dating site, the international hydrogen marketplace Localiser has been connecting the players in the hydrogen value chain for two years. Around 500 companies have been registered so far. The marketplace now also includes other European countries.
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Hydrogen is considered an environmentally friendly alternative to fossil fuels and plays an important role in decarbonizing industrial processes, storing renewable energy and promoting climate-neutral transportation. In updating its hydrogen strategy, the federal government assumes that the demand for hydrogen will increase to 95 to 130 TWh annually by 2030, mainly due to changes in industry and transport. The hydrogen economy is developing dynamically, but the question arises as to how the demand for hydrogen can be met.
The company Localiser RLI GmbH has on behalf of the ministry of economic affairs, labor and energy of the German state of Brandenburg and the Berlin senate department for economics, energy and enterprises developed the Wasserstoffmarktplatz (hydrogen marketplace). It was created as part of the development of the hydrogen roadmap for Brandenburg and the capital region. This free platform enables all players along the entire hydrogen value chain to network internationally. The hydrogen supply and demand is shown geo-referenced on maps. This makes searching for and offering hydrogen much easier.
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“The new marketplace makes the potential of the hydrogen economy visible and quickly brings together players along the entire value chain. Such an instrument has been missing so far and is unique in the country,” stated Kathrin Goldammer, managing director of Localiser RLI GmbH. Together with Oliver Arnhold, she leads the company.
The platform went online at the end of March 2022, and by April 2024, around 500 companies were registered on the hydrogen marketplace.
The hydrogen marketplace is expanding Six months after release of the platform, Localiser expanded the area of the watering hole that is the hydrogen marketplace. The Wasserstoffmarktplatz, which was initially only available in Berlin and Brandenburg, has been expanded to cover all of Germany, so hydrogen requests and offers from all of the German states can now be entered free of charge. Oliver Arnhold, managing director of Localiser, states, “We noticed the exponential growth in hydrogen demand throughout Germany and saw the hydrogen marketplace as the perfect solution for nationally networking hydrogen players.”
Due to the positive feedback from Germany, Localiser RLI GmbH decided, in partnership with the project HyTruck, to also offer the hydrogen marketplace internationally. The platform will be gradually expanded to cover all of Europe and will later be able to display global hydrogen supply and demand geo-referenced. The hydrogen marketplace is currently available in Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Ireland, Lithuania, Latvia, Norway, Poland, Sweden and the United Kingdom. Other countries will follow soon.
Use of the hydrogen marketplace is free of charge. Players in the hydrogen economy can register via the website of the company Localiser (localiser.de). After completing the form, you will receive an e-mail with a link to register in the app. Clicking on the link will take you to a subpage of the app where you will need to enter your details and create a user account. After logging in, users have access to their project.
The platform enables the visualization of many data sets, from renewable energies to infrastructure (roads, rail, grid and gas) and CO2 emissions. It also automatically suggests possible partner companies. In addition, the hydrogen marketplace provides an overview of the status of the infrastructure, including hydrogen refueling stations and future pipelines. This gives users comprehensive insight into the local hydrogen market.
The hydrogen marketplace is being continuously expanded and improved by Localiser RLI GmbH. In September 2023, the new matching function was introduced. This function automatically suggests potential business partners for each hydrogen player, making networking much easier. The marketplace provides an overview of all hydrogen offers and requests. It is possible to filter according to specific criteria such as company, category and project status. Clicking on a result opens a chat window that allows registered users to directly contact other companies. A summary of all matches can also be viewed in this overview. The marketplace can also be integrated on other websites as a white label.
Oliver Arnhold and Kathrin Goldammer have set up the hydrogen marketplace, Source: Reiner Lemoine Institut
Register at www.localiser.de/en/wasserstoff-infrastruktur-planen
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