In focus: Transitioning to low-carbon energy future through green hydrogen corridors

This time last year, the world, especially Europe, was busy as popcorn on a skillet trying to secure energy supplies and balance net-zero targets with the global energy crisis hot on its heels. This prompted governments, policymakers and industry players to transform strategies and ramp up investments in clean and sustainable solutions, such as hydrogen. While positive changes can be observed nowadays, the world might still be far from being on track to meet the targets and ambitions set out in the Paris Agreement.

With the ‘fragmented’ energy transition, the 1.5-degree goal set in the Paris Agreement is becoming increasingly difficult to achieve, Norway’s state-owned energy giant Equinor outlined in its new report Energy Perspectives 2023.

Diving into the long-term energy transition outlook and focusing on what the industry can do to overcome the current obstacles, Equinor claims that positive developments are in many cases offset by negative ones driven by increased levels of geopolitical conflict.

Another energy giant, Shell, unveiled plans to spend around $40 billion in its Integrated Gas and Upstream businesses, as it believes that oil and gas will remain important players on the energy stage to enable global energy security in the foreseeable future. Shell pointed out that its focus will be on boosting LNG as a cleaner alternative to high-carbon energy sources.

In addition, the UK-headquartered giant plans to spend $10-15 billion from 2023 to 2025 to support the development of low-carbon energy solutions, such as biofuels, hydrogen, electric vehicle charging, and carbon capture and storage (CCS).

When it comes to low-carbon energy solutions, all eyes are turned to hydrogen and the week behind us was not an exception.

Ålesund municipality in Norway will house one of the largest production facilities for green hydrogen in the entire Nordic region. The 270MW facility is to be developed by Australian Provaris Energy in collaboration with Norwegian Hydrogen.

New projects are in sight in Spain and Portugal as Lhyfe and Capital Energy agreed to jointly work on the development of offshore renewable hydrogen . Specifically, the two companies aim to create hydrogen production sites at some of the offshore wind farm sites currently being developed by Capital Energy, with an option to extend to other markets in the future.

This announcement was followed by several agreements for the creation of green hydrogen maritime corridors between Spain and the Netherlands.

Two agreements were signed by Iberdrola, ACE Terminal and Hynetwork Services, under which Iberdrola aims to transport green ammonia to ACE Terminal’s import facilities in the Port of Rotterdam, to handle and store, and convert ammonia into green hydrogen, for end use in industry, or direct use in shipping and other industries in northwestern Europe.

Another Spanish-Dutch renewable hydrogen corridor is envisaged between the ports of Bilbao and Amsterdam while Spanish multinational energy company Cepsa joined forces with Norwegian ammonia producer Yara Clean Ammonia on the development of the first green hydrogen corridor between the ports of Algeciras and Rotterdam.

Expanding beyond Europe, the European Union (EU) launched two new cooperation actions on renewable hydrogen with the Government of Chile, including a technical assistance project that will contribute to the development of the renewable hydrogen sector in Chile and the creation of a fund that will directly finance green hydrogen production projects.

Among other low-carbon energy solutions, it is worth mentioning that classification society DNV verified the safety of all aspects of Project Greensand’s CO2 storage in the North Sea. The project is said to be the first in the world to demonstrate that CO2 can be transported across national borders and stored offshore to mitigate climate change.

Offshore floating solar energy also deserved to be spotlighted with the announcemnt of a new 780kW plant to be developed off the coast of Tioaman island by Dutch-Norwegian company SolarDuck in partnership with subsidiaries of Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB), the largest utility in Malyasia.

Join this year’s Offshore Energy Exhibition & Conference, Europe’s leading event for the entire offshore energy industry, on 28 and 29 November at the RAI Convention Centre in Amsterdam.

Seize the opportunity to reach business leaders, highly qualified experts and professionals across global markets and book your ticket with the Early Bird discount now available at OEEC 2023 website.