Arab News Japan 

TOKYO: Russia is forging ahead with more specific plans to utilize hydrogen while the UK’s plan is more general to develop the use of hydrogen in the decades ahead, according a study by the Institute of Energy Economics, Japan.

The Russian government has approved the “Concept for the Development of Hydrogen Energy in Russia” for realizing a low-carbon society. 

The study says that in the first phase, a pilot project for low-carbon hydrogen production will be launched with the goal of exporting 200,000 tonnes of hydrogen in 2024. A hydrogen consortium of facility companies and manufacturers will also be established, and infrastructure for hydrogen storage and transport will be constructed. 

In the second phase, commercial production will start with the goal of exporting 2–12 million tonnes of hydrogen in 2030, as well as hydrogen-related facilities (blue hydrogen production plants, electrolytic baths, and facilities for storing, liquefying, and transporting hydrogen). During the third phase, the export of green hydrogen will start with the goal of exporting 15–50 million tonnes in 2050.

The Russian plan also proposes establishing three hydrogen production clusters, with the Northwest cluster exporting hydrogen to Europe and alleviating the carbon footprint of export companies. The East cluster will export hydrogen to Asia, aiming to develop hydrogen infrastructure in the transport and energy areas, while the Arctic cluster will supply low-carbon electricity to the Russian Arctic.

On Aug. 23, the concept and roadmap for the production and use of EVs and hydrogen vehicles up to 2030 were released. Created jointly by the Industry and Trade Ministry and the Economic Development Ministry, they set the targets of producing 25,000 EVs by the end of 2024 and 217,000 by 2030. No numerical targets were announced for hydrogen vehicles.

On Aug. 17, the United Kingdom released its first-ever hydrogen strategy. The strategy is based on the “Ten Point Plan for a Green Industrial Revolution” announced by Prime Minister Boris Johnson in Nov. 2020 with the goal of obtaining the capacity to produce 5 GW of low-carbon hydrogen by 2030. The strategy admits that the role of hydrogen in 2030 or 2050 is highly uncertain, including the production method and the scale of demand, but that support for new technologies must start in the 2020s in the commercial, technological, and user sectors across the entire value chain. 

The UK’s strategy is based on different timeframes, namely the early 2020s, the mid and late 2020s, and the mid-2030s, and sets a roadmap for the production, networks, and use of hydrogen, key milestones, and necessary support policies.

The UK’s hydrogen strategy is not limited to a single hydrogen production technology. It intends to use both green and blue hydrogen, currently comprises nine hydrogen production technologies, and consultations are underway toward designing the UK Low Carbon Hydrogen Standard. 

In the Ten Point Plan for a Green Industrial Revolution, the UK government set a milestone to complete the trials necessary to mix gas with 20 percent hydrogen in the residential gas networks by 2023. The Hydrogen Strategy goes one step further and aims to assess the cost performance of mixing hydrogen into existing gas networks by autumn 2022 and to make the final policy decision in late 2023.

While hydrogen entails uncertainties such as future demand, supply, and transport, the concrete efforts being pursued by various countries amid such circumstances must be watched.