Consumption & Processing

To this day, hydrogen has been used almost exclusively as a raw material in industry. In the chemical and petrochemical industries, it plays an important role as part of a variety of production processes. It is also used in the food industry, e.g. for hardening fat. In these applications, hydrogen cannot be replaced by electricity. So far, hydrogen has only been used in small quantities as an energy source in Germany.

In total, around 55 - 60 TW/h per year are consumed in Germany (German Bundestag, as of 2020).

The German government estimates that this demand will increase to 90-110 TW/h per year by 2030. In addition to its use in existing areas, green hydrogen in particular is expected to reduce CO2 emissions both in steelworks and through the production of climate-neutral synthetic fuels for aviation, shipping and heavy goods transport. The generation of heat and the safeguarding of electricity generation through hydrogen are also being discussed.

Refineries are already among the largest consumers of hydrogen in Germany, requiring more than 40% of the 1.6 million tonnes of hydrogen consumed annually in Germany.

The demand for hydrogen will not change initially. But climate-neutral green hydrogen can directly replace so-called grey hydrogen, which is produced from natural gas. This will quickly reduce CO2 emissions. If there is an extensive switch to synthetic fuels, e.g. paraffin, the demand for green hydrogen in the refineries will then increase significantly in a next step.

Hydrogen has always been an important resource in a refinery. Operational safety has the highest priority. The production facilities are monitored on an ongoing basis and regular systematic inspections are carried out by internal and external experts, as well as so-called inspection shutdowns every five years at the latest, during which the facilities are put through their paces. In addition to our own safety measures, the plants are regularly monitored by the responsible supervisory authority, including on-site inspections.

GET H2 Nukleus project partner bp is a pioneer within the industry in the use of green hydrogen from power-to-gas technology and has already used regenerative green hydrogen to produce low-CO2 fuels in a refinery for the first time worldwide. In a thirty-day demonstration project with green hydrogen in 2018, the engineers at the bp refinery in Lingen showed that it is possible to replace grey hydrogen with green hydrogen without any problems.

Hydrogen is currently used as a shielding gas in the further processing of cold-rolled steel in galvanising plants and annealing furnaces. Salzgitter Flachstahl, for example, currently requires around 400 m³ of hydrogen per hour.

In future, hydrogen will also be used for ore reduction (primary steel production) in new direct reduction plants to be built. This means that hydrogen will replace the coal-based blast furnace route, which will significantly reduce CO2 emissions from steel production. To convert an annual production of, for example, 4.5 million tonnes of crude steel (as at Salzgitter Flachstahl), around 1,000 times this amount is required. CO2 emissions from steel production can thus be reduced by more than 95%.

Safety is always the top priority when operating an integrated steelworks. There are established regulations on the basis of which sophisticated safety concepts for handling explosive, highly flammable and hazardous substances are applied. Handling larger quantities of hydrogen will not change this.

Steelworks have decades of experience in handling hydrogen-containing process and industrial gases. As green hydrogen is no different in terms of material from the grey hydrogen used to date, we can also apply this experience to the future use of hydrogen.

Hydrogen is already being used in refineries and chemical parks. So far, this hydrogen has been produced from natural gas in so-called steam reformers. As CO2 is emitted in the process, this hydrogen is referred to as grey hydrogen. The alternative is green hydrogen, which is produced from water in an electrolyser with the help of renewable energies. The potential saving when replacing grey hydrogen with green hydrogen is ten tonnes of CO2 per tonne of hydrogen. A 100 MW electrolyser, as planned for the first stage of the GET H2 Nukleus project, can produce up to two tonnes of green hydrogen per hour. With flexible operation of 3,750 full-load hours per year, we expect hydrogen production of around 7,000 tonnes per year and corresponding CO2 savings of 70,000 tonnes per year.

The electrolysis plant in Lingen is to be expanded to 300 MW by 2027. The potential for CO2 savings would then triple to 210,000 tonnes per year.

Refineries are an important part of the basic materials industry and supply the chemical industry in particular - one of the most important economic sectors in Germany. A good three quarters of the chemical industry's input materials come directly from refineries, the petrochemical industry. It is about much more than diesel and gasoline for road and air traffic. Many sectors in German industry source components from the chemical industry, such as plastics for wind turbines, high-performance plastics for batteries, paints, transparent plastics such as acrylates and many others. Economic growth in the chemical industry and other sectors also means increased demand for primary products from the petrochemical industry. What's more: Not all parts of transportation can be electrified. Hydrogen and synthetic fuels offer a renewable alternative for heavy goods vehicles and air traffic - but refineries are also needed to produce them.

No. Green hydrogen is used to directly reduce emissions in processing operations in refineries and chemical parks. Irrespective of a possible expansion of electromobility, there will continue to be applications in the transport sector where direct electrification is not technically or economically feasible, e.g. in air, ship or heavy duty long distance transport. In addition to the direct use of hydrogen, synthetic fuels can also be used here as a substitute for climate-damaging fuels. However, refineries are still required for their production. The production of conventional fuels will therefore be lower-emission in the first step, and in the second step they will be replaced by climate-neutral synthetic fuels. This is therefore not greenwashing, but a gradual process.

The further the expansion of renewable energies progresses, the greater the demand for hydrogen as an energy storage medium that creates flexibility. Since the energy supply should be secure not only for the electricity sector, but also for industry, mobility and heating, even when there is a lack of sufficient wind or sun for the energy supply, hydrogen is needed as a storage medium that can then be used to generate electricity. By storing the quantities of electricity that are not needed at the same time in the form of hydrogen, we can also take the fluctuations in renewable generation off the grid.

Die Erzeugung von Wasserstoff mittels Elektrolyse ist zudem deutlich effizienter geworden und weitere Fortschritte werden von den Herstellern erwartet. Das wird den Preis von grünem Wasserstoff sinken lassen, so dass der Einsatz langfristig günstiger sein wird als klimaschädliche Alternativen.

Both are important components in the implementation of the transport and mobility transition and will be used in parallel. Electromobility (with battery or fuel cell) is a much more efficient overall solution for passenger cars in particular compared to other forms of propulsion. For inner-city car traffic, electric cars with batteries are the more efficient solution. For long-distance and heavy goods traffic (trucks, refuse collection vehicles, buses, trains), on the other hand, vehicles with fuel cells are often the better option. In addition to advanced biofuels, so-called e-fuels produced with hydrogen are also an option for reducing CO2 emissions in air traffic.

The high-pressure tanks used usually operate at 350 bar (trucks, buses) or 700 bar (trucks, cars). The tanks are designed with a safety factor of 2.4, meaning they can withstand pressures of up to 840 bar or 1,680 bar. Furthermore, they are even bullet-proof.

If, contrary to expectations, hydrogen were to escape, its low atomic weight would allow it to escape upwards immediately and very quickly, disperse extremely rapidly and dilute in the air. Although a hydrogen-air mixture is flammable, it does not explode. It burns without producing smoke and the radiant heat of the fire is low. The safety radius defined for emergency services is smaller than with conventional fuels.

Only a mixture of hydrogen and pure oxygen (“oxyhydrogen”) would be explosive. However, as there is no pure oxygen in the air, this does not occur.

The emissions from a fuel cell are nothing other than water vapor. And in fact, pure distilled water comes out of the exhaust of a hydrogen vehicle. As long as the hydrogen used has been produced using green energy, the emissions are 100% climate-neutral.

There are now 105 H2 filling stations in Germany alone (as of February 2023). Corresponding federal funding programs (NIP, KsNI) will create further refueling options in the foreseeable future. It is already possible to travel across Germany, Austria, Benelux, Switzerland, Denmark and the UK in a hydrogen vehicle without any problems.

At the start of the hydrogen economy, the focus is on its use wherever CO2 emissions can be directly avoided. This is primarily the industrial sector, but also heavy goods traffic. Compared to industry, significantly smaller quantities of hydrogen are required here. With the expansion of production capacities and the import of hydrogen, the possibilities for widespread use in other areas such as mobility will also increase. The infrastructure for this should be developed now.