European utilities are pushing to build power plants that would burn natural gas now and then be switched to burn clean hydrogen down the road. But the technology they’re depending on wastes energy and opens the door for accusations of greenwashing.
RWE AG, SSE Plc and Equinor ASA say the swap will be easy once green hydrogen becomes plentiful and cheaper. The concept is so popular that Germany, Europe‘s biggest energy user, is counting on the clean fuel to help it achieve 100% renewable-power production by 2035.
A significant obstacle to those plans is hydrogen‘s inefficiency. By the time the gas is made, stored and burned to make electricity again, there’s nearly 70% less energy than at the start – and the cost has tripled. Plus, there may not be enough clean-tech to produce that hydrogen, leaving an opening for fossil fuels.
“There’s a huge scope for these ‘hydrogen-ready’ claims to be greenwashing if there aren’t conditions set,” said Sarah Brown, an analyst at London-based climate think tank Ember. “Operators or people who are going to build gas plants can just come out and say, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, it’ll be hydrogen-ready,’ without any definition of what that means.”
Governments are steering their economies through the worst energy crisis in decades with policies to guarantee domestic supply and double down on low-carbon technologies that help prevent catastrophic climate change. Many are counting on hydrogen to help them wean off polluting sources.
Public funding for the hydrogen sector totals USD 146 billion worldwide to 2030, according to BloombergNEF. Germany tops the list with USD 28.6 billion, while the UK has committed USD 1.9 billion.
Britain’s clean-energy strategy unveiled March 30 was low on fresh funding but proposed rules on defining “hydrogen readiness.”
