Green hydrogen and in particular, biohydrogen, offers incredible opportunities for Ireland.
Ireland has produced a National Hydrogen Strategy with the following policy drivers:
- Decarbonising the economy, in particular some parts of high temperature processing
- Enhancing Ireland’s energy security (reducing reliance on fossil fuels through dispatchable renewable electricity and long duration energy storage)
- Creating industrial and export market opportunities
Given the many advantages of biohydrogen, there is a need to reconsider Ireland’s strategy focus on harnessing green hydrogen through electrolysis following renewable energy production via wind and solar, as a means of capturing and storing excess energy at peak production.
The Strategy (Ch 2.2.3) recognises that biohydrogen can be produced in a way which can potentially deliver negative emissions, through the replacement of the fossil fuel input with a bioenergy source and utilising the same production technologies as low carbon hydrogen production.
The Strategy acknowledges that “electrolytic’ hydrogen is also likely to be a relatively expensive energy carrier and less efficient than direct use of the renewable electricity used to produce it, with energy losses occurring through the conversion process.
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Ireland Hydrogen Strategy Commitments:
- Develop a National Certification Scheme for hydrogen production methods
- Establish a Hydrogen Demonstration Fund to enable early innovations across the value chain
- Deliver on Ireland’s 2030 EU Requirements in the Transport Sector
- Deliver 2 GW of Offshore Wind for the Production of Renewable Hydrogen
- A willingness to explore further opportunities at EU level as they emerge to support innovative technologies along the hydrogen value chain
However, green hydrogen production is a nascent technology and in the early years policy signals and supports will be needed to reduce the price differential between renewable hydrogen and fossil fuels, create greater investor certainty and ultimately drive private investment
The deployment of green hydrogen in Ireland will focus on hard-to-decarbonise sectors where energy efficiency and direct electrification are not feasible or cost- effective solutions.
Heavy duty transport applications where there are binding EU targets for 2030 are anticipated to be the first end use sectors to develop, followed closely by industry and flexible power generation.
Aviation and maritime are expected to be large high priority end-users but these sectors will take longer to develop.