The potential of a globalized green hydrogen economy – an economy centered on the trade in hydrogen generated by renewables or low-carbon power – will be discussed at the World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi this January.
Delegates at the Summit, which takes place from January 16 to 18 at the Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre (ADNEC) and is the leading business event for future energy and sustainability, will take a deep dive into the realities of a green hydrogen economy.
Summit attendees will learn about the latest technologies driving the hydrogen revolution at the new Hydrogen Innovation Hub, which includes SMEs and startups, speed networking for green hydrogen professionals, and live podcast recordings focused on green hydrogen. Attendees will also witness Masdar’s inaugural Green Hydrogen Summit, which is being organized in collaboration with IRENA and the Atlantic Council. The Summit will highlight Abu Dhabi’s achievements to date as well as its ambitions to become a global hub for innovation and investment in this sector, while also providing a platform for leading hydrogen players from around the world to meet and exchange ideas.
Green hydrogen’s importance in the regional energy mix has never been greater. With the recent hosting of COP 27 in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, not only were new deals made to increase green hydrogen capacity, such as Elsewedy Electric and ReNew Power forming a partnership to develop a green hydrogen project in Egypt capable of producing 220,000 tonnes of green hydrogen per year, but countries such as Chile secured millions in funding to increase their green hydrogen output.
“If we look at the recent news coming out of COP 27 in Egypt from our partners and the industry, there are incredible opportunities happening across the region and internationally around green hydrogen. Our Hydrogen Innovation Hub will serve as an incubator, showcasing key technologies enabling the production, transport, storage, and use of green hydrogen. We hope to expedite collaboration, spur investment, and demonstrate the potential for regional projects, initiatives, and partnerships through this new feature at the show,” explained Leen Alsebai, Head of World Future Energy Summit, which is organised by RX Middle East.
Event partner, Masdar, one of the world’s fastest-growing clean energy companies, has also identified Africa as a continent that could capture as much as 10 percent of the global green hydrogen market, thereby helping to create up to 3.7 million jobs while adding as much as US$120 billion to the continent’s gross domestic product. This is according to a landmark report, “Africa’s Green Energy Revolution: Hydrogen’s role in unlocking Africa’s untapped renewables,” issued on the sidelines of COP27 by Masdar and its Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week (ADSW) platform, with analytical support provided by McKinsey & Company.
“Our report provides a blueprint for African nations to harness green hydrogen’s game-changing potential to decarbonize industries, drive sustainable economic growth, and accelerate the deployment of renewable energy across the continent. The grid-connected renewables used for green hydrogen production can feed energy into the grid to provide affordable clean energy to under-resourced areas – notably, in Sub-Saharan Africa, which has an average electrification rate of only 48 percent,” said Mohammad Abdelqader El Ramahi, Masdar Director of Asset Management, Technology and Green Hydrogen.
Specifically, the Masdar report found that Africa’s plentiful solar and wind resources could be leveraged to produce 30 to 60 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) of green hydrogen by 2050, about 5 to 10 percent of global demand. Enabling production on the scale of 30-60 mtpa would require between 1,500 and 3,000 terawatt hours (TWh) of renewable energy – equivalent to more than 50 times Africa’s current total production from solar and wind.
Yet the hypothesis of whether ‘green’ should be the focus of the hydrogen economy will be scrutinised by a panel of experts at the Solar & Clean Energy Forum as they examine the pros and cons of hydrogen types, why governments and organisations are focussing on green, examples of planned green hydrogen use, and how green hydrogen’s electrolyser market is being scaled.
Among the panellists is Stephan Gobert, Senior Vice President of Hydrogen at ENGIE, who is looking to lead in the production of large-scale renewable hydrogen. He believes the huge potential needs to be fully explored and understood if it is to be successful.
“Falling costs for green hydrogen will open opportunities to expand into new applications, especially heavy-duty trucking, off-grid power generation, and many other applications in sectors like mining,” said Gobert. “In the future, it will also expand into household and industrial heat, stationary power generation, and long-term electricity storage applications.
“The business viability of these applications depends on the long-term outlook for costs, the interplay between market size, regulation, voluntary Net Zero commitments, and other decarbonisation drivers. Successfully understanding and navigating these challenges can mean the difference between a prescient investment and a reckless one.”
Meanwhile, a panel at the Summit’s dedicated Water Forum will explore the water cost of hydrogen, given the large volumes used in manufacturing processes and for cooling electrolysers.
The panel will examine how the need for clean water can be married with economic ambitions and investigate the availability of research for alternative technological approaches to water usage in green hydrogen production.
Pressing the case for green hydrogen in water usage will be Roland Kaeppner, Executive Director of Hydrogen & Green Fuels – Energy & Water for Saudi Arabia’s NEOM – the smart city being built in the Kingdom’s Tabuk Province.
NEOM has launched its own Green Hydrogen Project, which is the world’s largest utility scale, commercially based hydrogen facility powered entirely by renewable energy.
“This project, which is a joint venture with Air Products and ACWA Power, is based on proven, world-class technologies that will include the innovative integration of a combined capacity of more than four gigawatts of renewable power from solar, wind, and storage,” explained Kaeppner. “We will use this as a case study for the sustainability of green hydrogen by demonstrating how – when commissioned in 2026 – the project will mitigate the impact of three million tonnes of carbon dioxide per year.”
Organisers of the World Future Energy Summit believe the renewable energy industry will be closely monitoring the forum discussions taking place in January, as the region looks to take a leadership role in the green hydrogen economy.
“Water-scarce countries such as the UAE and Saudi Arabia plan to become market leaders in hydrogen manufacturing and supply, but they need to factor in the issues of exactly how hydrogen plans can dovetail with their food and water security strategies in terms of water use. Currently, some 46 green hydrogen projects are underway in the Middle East and Africa with a further 40 investments worth over US $20 billion having been pledged by 2030. The Forums will give these industries a deep perspective on where the smart money is going and how ambitions could be realised.” added Alsebai.
For more information on the event and how to be involved, please visit https://www.worldfutureenergysummit.com
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