Green hydrogen for energy storage, sustainable chemicals, and mobility
In today’s changing electricity landscape, moving away from coal, oil, gas and nuclear power production towards solar and wind energy, there is a strong need for cross-sector integration of these huge amounts of electricity, not just for electrical applications but also for transportation, heating, and the chemical industry.
The water electrolysis process is in use around the world for several decades, mainly in installations serving small-volume industries such as glass making, organic hydrogenation, generator cooling applications etc. In the fertilizer industry it was always an option when cheap electricity was available and there were no other sources of hydrogen. As in the future the focus will be more on integrating renewable energy sources in a cross-sector approach, hydrogen will have a very important role to play.
Most of the so-called Power to X technologies (where X can be gas e.g. hydrogen or methane, chemicals such as ammonia or methanol, gasoline and so forth) include a water electrolysis plant as the very first step to obtain the hydrogen needed for the subsequent conversion of carbon dioxide or nitrogen. At thyssenkrupp we are constantly working on this technology, which will be at the heart of the energy system of the future.