The Netherlands is plugging in. Our country is the European leader in solar panels, heat pumps are appearing in gardens and on roofs, and people are buying new electric cars in increasing numbers (one in three in 2024). This makes the electrification of the energy supply in the Netherlands visible to all.
We are now, however, also seeing the consequences thereof. The electricity grid is at its limit in many places and grid congestion (see page 4 ‘The power grid requires smart rules’) is a barrier to business and residential development. According to CBS, around 30% of energy consumption in the Netherlands currently consists of electricity. Half of this comes from renewable sources such as biomass, solar and wind. And electricity use will only continue to increase.
Yet professor Bendiks Jan Boersma from the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering expects that not everything will be electric. He is the director of research for TU’s H2 platform, which facilitates collaboration to accelerate hydrogen innovations. “Electricity is simply not currently suitable for energy storage across seasons, high-temperature heat or as an energy source for heavy transport by trucks, ships or planes.”
However, hydrogen is suitable for this. It’s also an important raw material for the chemical industry, for example for the production of ammonia (NH3) as a basis for fertilisers.
Inland vessels of the company Future Proof Shipping are running on green hydrogen.
© Future Proof Shipping
From grey to green
Even now, most hydrogen is ‘grey’. This is created from natural gas split into hydrogen and the greenhouse gases CO and CO2. Electrolysis can make hydrogen production emission-free, says Willem Haverkort from the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering. He’s researching how to make that process even more efficient. Imagine a container of water, Haverkort explains, containing two metal plates with an electrical charge running across them. The charge triggers a chemical reaction that causes the water to split into hydrogen and oxygen bubbles. Under no circumstances should the different bubbles come into contact with each other because the slightest spark would literally create fireworks. So there is a membrane between them that allows the energy and water through, but no bubbles. The hydrogen bubbles rise from the water with some of the energy from the plates and become energy carriers. The rest of the energy is lost as heat. Prior to leaving the basin, the hydrogen and oxygen bubbles can really get in the way of the process, says Haverkort. “It creates more resistance because the current has to work its way around the bubbles.” That’s why Haverkort wants those bubbles out of the water as soon as possible. He is working on a design in which the membrane is replaced by a current, which ensures that the bubbles rise on the correct side as fast as possible. This will make the process more efficient and hopefully cheaper. Haverkort hopes that it will make production more attractive. According to him, the price of green electricity is an even more important factor. “It’s too high to be able to compete with natural gas. If it should reduce, for example due to a much greater supply of renewable electricity, green hydrogen production would become really interesting.”
Green hydrogen
A climate-neutral Europe demands green hydrogen, derived from the electrolysis of water using green electricity. But, to be honest, it’s scarcely available at the moment. The market share is less than 1%. The rest of the hydrogen, which is mainly used in industry, is grey hydrogen made from natural gas (about 10% of national use).
More green hydrogen requires much more green electricity. The Netherlands is mainly focussing on offshore wind power, with 4.7 gigawatts currently operational in the North Sea. If we want to produce all the necessary energy domestically, this must be 72 gigawatts by 2050.
With such large electricity production, supply is likely to often outstrip demand. That’s a good time to produce hydrogen with electrolysers because the price of electricity is very low then.
But if you only produce hydrogen when there is a surplus of electricity, the electrolysers will also often be switched off. And that makes it harder for wind farms to achieve sufficient profitability.
Choosing to produce electricity or hydrogen at remote wind farms poses another dilemma. Transporting hydrogen through a pipeline is much cheaper per unit of energy delivered than via a high-voltage cable along the seabed. But about a quarter of the energy is lost when converting electricity to hydrogen. So which is the best option: offshore hydrogen production and pipeline transport or electricity transmission through an expensive cable? The first test rig for offshore hydrogen production will be commissioned soon. This 1-megawatt rig – called PosHYdon – will be located on offshore platform Q13a-A, some 13 kilometres off the coast of Scheveningen. Fifteen partners, including TNO and Gasunie, will produce the first offshore green hydrogen from wind energy there.
Inland shipping on green hydrogen
“The shipping sector uses about as much fuel as aviation. There is a lot to gain there,” says Lindert van Biert from the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering. The challenge: “It is quite difficult to generate energy on a ship because you have to bring everything with you.” For ships, hydrogen is more suitable than batteries, for example, says Van Biert. Because they can quickly become too big and heavy. But hydrogen takes up five times more space than diesel due to the special tanks required, which means regularly refuelling. That’s not a major issue for inland vessels, which sail relatively short distances. It is therefore unsurprising that inland shipping in particular is making the switch to hydrogen. Other promising energy carriers for shipping include ammonia and methanol, which are both easier to transport than hydrogen. But ammonia is toxic. “It’s quite harmful to people when released. Which is why you don’t want it on inland vessels that sail in built-up areas.” Methanol may emit CO2 but it is easy to transport and therefore especially suitable for long distances. In the Netherlands, two inland vessels – from the company Future Proof Shipping – are now running on green hydrogen. But, says Van Biert, not every ship running on electric fuel is sustainable. “Indeed, the vast majority of hydrogen is not yet produced as green.” Alongside Future Proof Shipping, Maersk is also showing that it can be done. The shipping container conglomerate has recently started running some ships on green methanol. Biert: “That was barely being produced but such a big company can create the demand and the supply will follow.” Van Biert thinks that the same should happen with hydrogen. “There’s no point unless the energy comes from green sources.”
Much is expected from electrolysis but what technique do you use?
In the Hydrogen Street at The Green Village, researchers are investigating under which conditions the traditional gas network can be used for the transport of green hydrogen gas.
© Willem de Kam
Sticking points
Offshore hydrogen should become a pillar of the Dutch energy supply but there are still a lot of unknowns, notes Boersma. There are numerous conceivable variants – from onshore electrolysis with offshore wind power to offshore wind farms that produce hydrogen rather than electricity and can store it underground. Like an offshore drilling platform, such a hydrogen island would be connected to land only by pipeline. Further study is required to answer the question of which technique would be the best choice for which site. Boersma mentions electrolysis as a second sticking point. There are high expectations for this and a huge scale-up is required. Which technology is efficient, cheap and scalable without using critical resources?
Regulation
A lot also needs to be sorted on the policy front, observes Dr.ir. Peter Lucas, programme manager at the H2 platform. He notes that a lack of familiarity is preventing the private hydrogen market from really taking off. Hydrogen use is well regulated in industry but consumers are hesitant, in part due to the fact that hydrogen is known to be explosive. European regulations have been drafted to create a market for green hydrogen. Included in this is the obligation to blend non-biological fuels. This is called Renewable fuel of non-biological origin (RFNBO), which refers to synthetic fuels made with green (or blue) hydrogen. By 2030, 29% of transport fuels should be RFNBO. The intention is to boost demand for green hydrogen and lower its price through economies of scale. Finally, Lucas points to a strategic choice: does the Netherlands want to become self-sufficient with large offshore wind farms or is it better to opt for hydrogen imports? For example, from countries such as Spain or Morocco where there is an ample supply of sun and wind.
“It is economically advantageous to locate energy generation and energyintensive businesses where energy is available at the cheapest price,” says Lucas. “So not only hydrogen production but also processing it into ammonia or other chemical feedstocks. But what would that mean for the fertiliser industry, blast furnaces and chemical industries in the port of Rotterdam?”
TU Delft offers various courses in the field of hydrogen. Visit: online-learning.tudelft.nl
Storage
Imagine a future where Dutch households and industry run on renewable energy from wind and solar. But what if the sun isn’t shining or the wind is not blowing? You then need to be able to fall back on a large energy reserve. That’s where hydrogen storage comes into play. “We cannot afford not to do this,” says professor Hadi Hajibeygi from the Faculty of Civil Engineering and Geosciences. He is researching subsurface hydrogen storage: a large-scale way to buffer energy for periods of scarcity. We already store 136 terawatt-hours of natural gas in empty gas fields in the Netherlands. According to Hajibeygi, we will soon be able to store enough hydrogen in those same fields or in salt caverns to last several winters. Salt caverns are especially suitable for rapid storage and release, for example if the sun or wind suddenly disappears, Hajibeygi explains. Gas fields are better for long-term storage.
Hajibeygi believes that the Netherlands’ thick salt deposits and empty gas fields give it a geological advantage in this respect: “We can store safely and on a large scale here – under land and at sea.” Gasunie is experimenting with storing hydrogen in just such a salt cavern in Zuidenwending, near Veendam. “The technology is there, now we need the market,” he says. Yet there are also concerns. After all, hydrogen is the lightest molecule on our planet and much more mobile than any other gas. Could it cause subsidence or earthquakes like in Groningen? “No,” reassures Hajibeygi. “In Groningen, reservoir pressure dropped for years as we continued to extract gas, leading to subsidence. But with hydrogen storage, we keep the pressure within safe limits. We store it, extract it and actively adjust it. We can also choose where to store it, for example away from fault lines or vulnerable areas.” He believes that there is huge potential. “We learned from Groningen. Now is the time to get it right.”