In focus: All roads leading to hydrogen

This week’s announcement on the creation of a new European Hydrogen Bank has been hailed by many as a game-changer that will help decarbonise the EU in a cost-effective way.

The announcement was made by President of the European Commission (EC) Ursula von Der Leyen during her State of the Union address on 14 September 2022 as one of the Commission’s initiatives to invest further in renewable energy and hydrogen in particular.

As disclosed, the new European Hydrogen Bank will guarantee the purchase of hydrogen, notably by using resources from the Innovation Fund, through an investment of €3 billion to help build the future market for hydrogen.

On the same day, Irish green hydrogen company EIH2 and Port of Cork signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Dutch Port of Amsterdam to establish a supply chain for green hydrogen between Ireland and Europe via the Port of Amsterdam.

The agreement is said to reflect the collaboration between Ireland and the Netherlands as well as the European approach to working together toward becoming the first Net Zero continent.

Commenting on the MoU, EIH2’s founder Pearse Flynn said: “Our goal at EIH2 is to help both Ireland and Europe achieve their ambitious energy targets. The recent RePowerEU plan quadruples the role for green hydrogen in Europe.

Even though the adoption of hydrogen as marine fuel for deep sea-going vessels seems to be lagging behind its counterparts such as methanol and ammonia, this fuel remains as an attractive option for internal combustion engines as it produces no greenhouse gas emissions.

However, hydrogen needs to be compressed (700 bar) or liquified (-253 °C), which requires substantial ingenuity from the engineering side so as to enable a vessel to store the chemical element safely at such low temperatures while keeping the structural integrity of the tanks and the entire vessel intact.

The key hurdles hindering a greater uptake are hydrogen’s low energy density and the corresponding space demands, heralding a limited hydrogen uptake in deep-sea ship segments where 2-stroke engines are a natural choice for propulsion, DNV said in its Maritime Forecast to 2050 report.

On the other hand, methanol-powered vessel receive more and more approvals like the recent one from Classification society American Bureau of Shipping (ABS) for the world’s first methanol-powered Newcastlemax bulk carrier.

As reported, ABS has granted approval in principle (AIP) to CSSC Qingdao Beihai Shipbuilding CO., LTD and China Ship Design & Research Center Co., Ltd (CSDC) for the world’s first methanol-powered Newcastlemax.

The dual-fuel, 210,000 dwt vessel is also equipped with the methanol tank capacity to fully meet endurance requirements on methanol fuel alone.

Next to this, German battery technology company Freudenberg e-Power Systems has received type approval by Italian classification society RINA for its methanol-powered fuel cell system.

This means that the system can now be used on seagoing vessels, representing an important development step towards new maritime energy systems and climate-friendly shipping.