10 cover story
@ green | September-October , 2020
One of the fuel cells displayed during the UNDP Hydrogen Industry Conference in Foshan , China in October 2019 . The advancement of technology today enables the fuel cell to have more power and produced at a much less cost . Tremendous technological development and improvement have been achieved , making the technology more viable .
Based on the report , clean hydrogen is currently enjoying unprecedented political and business momentum , with the number of policies and projects around the world expanding rapidly . We can foresee that the time to scale up technologies and bring down costs to allow hydrogen to become widely used has finally arrived and it will materialise soon .”
• Abdul Aziz
Sarawak ’ s Hydrogen Agenda becomes an attrac tive proposition ,” said Abdul Aziz , adding that Sarawak has several key competitive advantages as a potential green hydrogen producer .
“ Firstly , it has affordable energy resources which are far greater than its own domestic requirement . Secondly , most of those resources are renewable , in the form of high levels of current hydropower generation capacity and future hydropower generation potential .
“ As with any power generating system , Sarawak power company SEB ( Sarawak Energy Berhad ), has to maintain a reserve margin to ensure uninterrupted supply to their customers . This margin is anywhere between 14-19 per cent of the annual peak load . In most cases , this power is wasted . However , current technology has enabled the production of H2 ( hydrogen gas ) by electrolysis from an intermittent power supply , making it possible to use the reserve energy for large scale hydrogen production .”
Thus , it makes both economic and environmental sense for Sarawak to follow the electrochemical route , using green electricity from hydropower to produce green , guaranteed carbon-neutral hydrogen .
Abdul Aziz also said according to a publication by Linde Gas on hydrogen solutions , many countries were testing the use of both hydrogen combustion and hydrogen power generation for their suitability for everyday use .
While the focus of the study and testing is on the mobile use of hydrogen as a vehicle fuel , he said the fundamental objective for exploring hydrogen to power vehicles was based on the assumption that hydrogen market volume held enormous potential for the future and possessed significant positive effects for humankind and the environment as a whole .
“ The International Energy Agency ( IEA ) had produced a report on the future of hydrogen at the request of the government of Japan under its G20 presidency last year . This landmark report analysed the current State of play for hydrogen and to offer guidance on its future development .
“ Based on the report , clean hydrogen is currently enjoying unprecedented political and business momentum , with the number of policies and projects around the world expanding rapidly .
“ We can foresee that the time to scale up technologies and bring down costs to allow hydrogen to become widely used had finally arrived and it will be materialised soon ,” he added .
Moving forward
Recognising the future of the hydrogen technologies and sustainability , Sarawak is well-placed in capitalising on a future export hydrogen market .
Abdul Aziz said SEDC Energy Sdn Bhd was studying the feasibility of large-scale hydrogen production to meet both domestic and export market . With prospective partner and investor , they are planning a 1000 tonnes per year facility in Bintulu which would be ready in 2023 to meet the needs of potential buyers .
This plant , he added , is scalable and can be expanded to 10,000 tonnes per year in the future .
“ Recent developments in the industry have shown how Sarawak could benefit from the international green hydrogen trade as we are not the first to venture into this area . Both Australia and Brunei have exported hydrogen to Japan using the using toluene as the carrier .
( Hydrogen is added to toluene to create methylcyclohexane , a liquid that can be shipped safely in containers at room temperature to Japan where hydrogen is extracted at their dehydrogenation plant . As the project is are still under research and development , there would be further development , especially in cost reduction ).
“ Hence , Sarawak should reduce its dependency on oil and gas sector , and commercialisation of green hydrogen as an export commodity will help us to achieve this target .”
Sarawak , he said , had the potential to become a key player in the export of green energy due to its geographical advantage , as it was located close to existing energy-hungry markets .
Markets with existing or near-future demand for green energy include Japan , Korea and China . In the longer term , Southeast Asian neighbours such as Indonesia , Thailand , Singapore , the Philippines , Vietnam and Peninsular Malaysia would also be potential markets for green hydrogen .
In addition , green hydrogen may also provide a valuable boost to Sarawak ’ s existing chemical sector through its value as an industrial feedstock .
“ We acknowledged that blue hydrogen can play a pivotal part in the energy transition towards green hydrogen . If we look at the European countries , they are aiming to be net-zero carbon across all sectors by 2050 ,” he said .
“ Hydrogen is likely to play a substantial role in getting carbon out of those hard-to-reach sectors like heavy industry and freight . For example , Germany ’ s own national hydrogen strategy had left the door open for blue hydrogen even though the government considers only hydrogen that has been produced using renewable energy to be sustainable in the long term .
“ Meanwhile , the United Kingdom also backed blue hydrogen as a means to help scale-up the hydrogen economy quickly in tandem with , not instead of , the development of green hydrogen .”
Looking at global development , green hydrogen remains the fuel of the future in a sustainable long-term energy solution .
While there are many comparative analyses between EV and FC vehicles , Abdul Aziz believed both technologies had their respective strong points .
“ For Sarawak , we see the development of hydrogen economy as a long-term initiative . I don ’ t see any issue in terms of comparing one technology over the other . Both technologies have their strong points , and I see them being adopted and deployed for numerous applications ,” he said .
“ I personally do not believe that batteries will replace fuel cells or vice versa , but I think that they can complement each other . Right now , cars and smaller vehicles could benefit much more from electric batteries , and that larger vehicles will be better served by adopting hydrogen fuel cell technology .
Furthermore , recent advancement in both areas have improved efficiency of BEVs and FCEVs . Better batteries have enabled BEVs to run further and longer in a single charge . Currently , the Tesla Model S can run 379 miles , equivalent to 610km on a single charge . Improvement in fuel cell design have also been significant . The Hyundai Nexo SUV recently drove 484 miles or 779km across France , setting a new world record for the longest distance travelled in a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle on a single refueling . I expect that hydrogen fuel cell vehicle will be able to go up to 1000km with a full tank in the near future .
And who knows , he added , that a few years from now , what other application would be able to function better and greener with these two technologies . — @ green