
Policy Brief – Financing Grids
Electricity grids are critical to achieving climate neutrality by 2050. In the coming decade, the European Union (EU) will require significant invest...
Focus area
Energy Systems
Hydrogen is an energy carrier that can store and deliver usable energy, and a crucial feedstock for various industrial sectors.
While its combustion produces no greenhouse gases, the production of hydrogen can have varying degrees of associated greenhouse gas emissions.
Currently, the vast majority of hydrogen produced worldwide is “grey” hydrogen, produced using fossil gas and generating large amounts of greenhouse gas emissions. Renewable hydrogen, or “green” hydrogen, has the potential for very low associated carbon emissions but requires large amounts of renewable electricity to be produced. This renewable electricity demand must be met with additional renewable capacity, and must be produced and consumed simultaneously, and in the same areas. If not, “green” hydrogen production cannibalises existing renewable electricity needed to decarbonise the power grid and support the phase-out of coal and gas through direct electrification. It therefore shifts emissions to a different place in the wider system instead of reducing them.
“Blue” hydrogen is produced through the same process as grey hydrogen (i.e., by reforming natural gas), but it is paired with carbon capture and storage (CCS) and has the potential to be low-carbon. Whether this potential is realised depends on the amount of upstream methane emissions resulting from natural gas extraction and transportation, as well as the share of CO2 emissions resulting from hydrogen production that cannot be captured and permanently stored. To be considered low-carbon, these emission sources, as well as other potential points of emissions along the entire value chain, must be kept to an absolute minimum, strictly monitored, and regulated.
Substituting “grey” hydrogen and unabated fossil fuels with low-emission hydrogen has great potential for reducing emissions if done right. However, the production of low-emission hydrogen must be paired with renewable energy sources and careful management of greenhouse gas emissions throughout the entire value chain.
On February 26th, the Commission has published an Action Plan for Affordable Energy with the purpose of containing energy prices and ensuring the com...
More stringent rules for ‘blue hydrogen’ based on fossil gas in the low-carbon fuels delegated act are needed to ensure a level playing field for Renewable Fuels of Non-Biological Origin.
In a newly released open letter, Bellona joined other environmental groups and industry representatives in urging COP29 leaders and key UN officials ...
Bellona is proud to stand alongside fellow environmental groups and hydrogen developers as signatories to a critical letter to the International Orga...
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