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By Mathias Kube, Mark Livingstone, and Jan Cihlar
Industrial clusters in Europe are receiving increasing interest from policymakers, industrial shareholders, potential suppliers, infrastructure providers, and investors. They represent substantial energy and feedstock demand and are expected to be the first sector to decarbonise, mainly due to their impact on emissions and the consequent pressure from policymakers and shareholders. Such clusters typically include multiple large players from energy intensive industries such as chemicals, steel, cement, refineries, or transport hubs such as ports. For most of them, carbon-neutral hydrogen is a promising decarbonisation solution as part of an overall decarbonisation strategy. Given investment backlogs, long lead times, and technological lock-ins, the time to invest is now. Hence, industrial clusters are expected to become the first large hydrogen offtakers.
Industrial Cluster with Opportunities for Early Stage Hydrogen Applications
(Source: Guidehouse)
This development is supported by an increasing number of jurisdictions releasing national hydrogen strategies to meet decarbonisation targets, protect energy intensive industries, and build the foundation for new job creation in green markets. Policies are a key enabler for hydrogen. Regulations and subsidies are essential for initial development of hydrogen markets as there is currently no standalone business case for green or blue hydrogen.
Potential Hydrogen Producers Must Consider the Need for Scale
Local hydrogen production for one company requires less adaptation and alignment with other parties but will be more expensive compared to a large-scale supply solution for the cluster. The latter would profit from large-scale electrolysis or blue hydrogen sources and could leverage synergies that enable cost-effective deployment of pipeline infrastructure (connected to a European Hydrogen Backbone, for example). Many of these key players in clusters are currently looking for the right hydrogen supply partners; however, there are no clear winners yet on the supply side.
Industrial Clusters Are Complex to Serve
Players have different timelines and levels of certainty for their decarbonisation efforts and a different value for using hydrogen in their processes and applications. Some industries such as refining have uncertainties over their long-term prospects, given changes in future fuel needs. Others such as steel face particular economic challenges, such as fierce international competition and imports from non-EEA countries with less strict decarbonisation regulation and lower compliance costs that threaten the viability of some facilities. As decarbonisation solutions often profit from scale or joint infrastructure (such as for carbon capture and storage), players are forming cluster organisations such as SDR in Zeeland, Net Zero Teesside in the UK, or In4climate.NRW in Germany.
Can We Be Colour Blind?
Additional uncertainty remains as to the colour of the hydrogen. While blue hydrogen production with carbon capture, utilisation, and storage (CCUS) will allow production and scale, it faces public and policy resistance around carbon storage in some countries, and methane leakage is still considered an uncertainty from a sustainability perspective. Green hydrogen is perceived as more environmentally friendly but requires an additional reliable low cost renewable power supply and needs to improve economically. This improvement includes an economic optimisation of different renewables (e.g., wind and solar) and storage (e.g., batteries) to achieve the highest full-load hours of the electrolyser at the lowest possible electricity cost.
Becoming a Hydrogen Supplier for a Cluster Is a Huge Challenge
To be successful, stakeholders need to:
Given these challenges, it is understandable that nearly all hydrogen projects announced to date (such as the GET H2 project in Germany) typically include a consortium with a smaller set of offtakers and clear policy support that targets industrial investment and supporting hydrogen supply economics. We see a limited number of potential large-scale, end-to-end suppliers. A promising group in this regard is the newly positioned integrated energy companies formerly known as oil & gas majors. They can manage end-to-end supply chains, including risk management and large-scale operations, and they can leverage their trading capabilities. With their own refineries, integrated energy companies can also act as an anchor hydrogen customer, which—together with the gas supply and renewable power business—allows for optimisation in hydrogen production/sourcing.
Future suppliers of industrial clusters can choose different strategic paths, from becoming a specialised hydrogen supplier for selected industries to turning into a cluster orchestrator serving the full cluster and multiple decarbonisation/cluster needs beyond hydrogen. For example, this effort could involve supplying renewable energy and CCUS solutions across industries. Developing hydrogen infrastructure is another important part of the end-to-end mix, including hydrogen storage, import infrastructure, and pipelines.
The next steps in the emergence of future hydrogen supply champions include:
Guidehouse specialises in developing decarbonisation pathways for industry leaders. Our team’s vast knowledge leads to implementable strategies that yield significant reduction in emissions. Contact Guidehouse expert Michael Pita to learn more about our services.
Michael Pita, Director
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