(288a) Integration of Green Hydrogen Value Chains for Energy-Intensive Industries with Wider Energy Systems: Whole-Systems Modelling and Optimisation

Establishing a thriving low-carbon hydrogen economy is a cornerstone of the UK Government’s plan for the country’s transition to net zero, as set out in the Prime Minister’s Ten Point Plan for a Green Industrial Revolution [1]. The UK Hydrogen Strategy [2] and the UK Net Zero Research and Innovation Framework [3] provide a framework for achieving the UK’s target to deliver 5 GW of low-carbon hydrogen production by 2030. Meeting this target requires rapid deployment of low-carbon hydrogen production from a starting point of practically nothing (beyond demonstration projects); current hydrogen production is mainly from natural gas, without carbon capture, and is used as a feedstock for manufacturing chemicals, such as ammonia for fertilisers, and not for energy. There is a need for whole-system value chain analyses to determine the most effective strategies for the rapid and large-scale deployment of low-carbon hydrogen and to understand the systems-integration requirements as well as the implications and impacts on wider energy systems.

Switching energy-intensive industries, such as steel, to low-carbon hydrogen can kickstart a thriving hydrogen market and could be an effective strategy to integrate hydrogen into the wider energy system. This is because these industries have large and reliable energy demands, which if met predominantly from low-carbon hydrogen would encourage many producers into the market. This would facilitate trickle-down of low-carbon hydrogen to other sectors, such as residential heating and mobility. Energy-intensive industries account for 22% of the global CO₂ emissions; steel accounts for 7% and is critical for achieving net zero, as it is used in virtually every technology needed for net zero, such as wind turbines, electric and fuel cell vehicles, solar panels and heat pumps. Further, these sectors are where the largest CO₂ abatement per unit cost can be achieved: e.g., using 1 tonne of green hydrogen to produce steel will abate 26 tonnes of CO₂, whereas only 6 to 7 tonnes of CO₂ would be abated if it were used for mobility, and the abatement is lower for other sectors. Furthermore, there are good electrification options for domestic heating and mobility, e.g. heat pumps and electric vehicles, whereas it is very difficult to electrify completely some industries.

The aim of this study is to determine promising and robust low-carbon hydrogen value chains for hard-to-decarbonise sectors, focusing on the steel industry, and how these value chains can be effectively integrated with those of other sectors (sector coupling). Process models of an integrated steel plant using Direct Reduction of Iron with hydrogen combined with Electric Arc Furnace, which is a net-zero route for producing steel if using green hydrogen, were developed to understand its techno-economic and environmental performance. The results from the process modelling were then integrated into a whole-system value chain optimisation model [4,5] with a detailed representation of the industry, power, buildings and transport sectors, in order to explore how the hydrogen value chains for low-carbon steel and other sectors of the wider energy system could develop in the short- (2020-2025), medium- (2025-2030) and long-term (2030s and beyond). The model determines the most effective planning, design and operation of value chains for multi-sector provision of electricity, mobility, heat, chemicals and other products and services, modelling a wide range of technologies, infrastructures and resources. The model has a high spatial and temporal resolution, which allows representation of local/regional variations in demands and resource availability (e.g. specification of the amount of available/suitable areas for wind, solar and biomass at the 1 km level), detailed transmission and distribution network design (including hydrogen and CO₂ pipelines), planning and investments in technologies (e.g. where, when and how much capacity to invest in), management of storage inventories and operation of all technologies and the entire network at the hourly, daily, seasonal and yearly level. A number of scenarios were modelled and optimised, and in this conference, we will present results that answer the following questions:

• Can sufficient low-carbon hydrogen be produced in the UK for the steel industry?
• What is the optimal mix of green and blue hydrogen to minimise costs and environmental impacts?
• How much offshore, onshore wind and solar capacity, and biomass will be needed?
• How to ramp up demands in low-carbon hydrogen and what are the roles that technologies could play in achieving the levels of production needed to meet the 5 GW target by 2030 and increasing this beyond and to 2050 to meet net-zero commitments?
• How will the hydrogen network and/or carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) value chains develop and expand?

References:

[1] UK Government, Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy. The Ten Point Plan for a Green Industrial Revolution, November 2020. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-ten-point-plan-for-a-green-industrial-revolution/title

[2] HM Government. UK Hydrogen Strategy, August 2021. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-hydrogen-strategy

[3] HM Government. UK Net Zero Research and Innovation Framework, October 2021. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/net-zero-research-and-innovation-framework

[4] Samsatli, S. & Samsatli, N.J., 2019. The role of renewable hydrogen and inter-seasonal storage in decarbonising heat – Comprehensive optimisation of future renewable energy value chains. Applied Energy, 233-234, 854-893. DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2018.09.159

[5] Samsatli, S. & Samsatli, N.J., 2018. A multi-objective MILP model for the design and operation of future integrated multi-vector energy networks capturing detailed spatio-temporal dependencies. Applied Energy, 220, 893-920. DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2017.09.055