The world’s climate and natural environment continue to be adversely affected by human activities that produce CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions that exacerbate global warming. A recent IPCC report informs us that several impacts of climate change are now irreversible. The world needs to work very hard to slow down and abate climate change. With energy use being the leading contributor to climate change, aviation, shipping, & heavy industry accounts for at least one-third of energy sector emissions. However, for these sectors, the direct application of renewable electricity in place of conventional fossil fuels is either impossible or extremely difficult.
Consequently, there have been christened “hard-to-abate sectors” because of the associated difficulties that in no way preclude them from transitioning their primary sources of energy from carbon-intensive fossils to clean renewables. Therefore, the supervening question is: how can such hard-to-abate sectors be decarbonised? In comes green hydrogen.
Hydrogen is the most abundant element on earth, existing in combination with other elements in the form of water, hydrocarbons etc. However, hydrogen is difficult to produce as a pure substance and requires special technology and chemical processes to extract. It exists as a gas at room temperature and atmospheric pressure. Hydrogen gas produces energy when burned in the presence of oxygen, with the only by-product being water. This makes hydrogen a clean fuel in itself. It should be known that produced hydrogen is only as clean as the process that created it.
Hydrogen types are named based on the production process and the emissions associated with that process. There are several ways of creating hydrogen, but this article focuses on green hydrogen. It is, however, necessary to introduce other popular hydrogen types.
Grey Hydrogen
This is hydrogen created from hydrocarbons like natural gas (methane) and coal using the steam reforming process where hydrogen is separated from CO2. The hydrogen is captured, while the CO2 is vented into the atmosphere. Hydrogen created from this process is still considered dirty due to the CO2 released.
Blue Hydrogen
This is similar to the grey hydrogen production process, except for the addition of an extra step where the separated CO2 is captured and stored for reuse or pumped underground. This makes blue hydrogen much cleaner than grey hydrogen, but still not the cleanest form of hydrogen as up to 20% of the separated CO2 is not captured.
Green Hydrogen
Green hydrogen is produced by a different technology, using an electrolyser to split water into its constituent elements (hydrogen and oxygen). The hydrogen produced is considered green when electricity produced from renewable sources is used to power the electrolyser. This is the cleanest form of hydrogen.
Green Hydrogen as a Fuel of the Future
Green hydrogen is considered a breakthrough fuel technology for decarbonising hard-to-abate sectors. A principal reason industrial sectors like chemicals, cement, steel, fertiliser etc., are hard to decarbonise is that fossils like natural gas are used as a fuel source and constitute a feedstock in their industrial processes. Therefore, replacing the energy component with renewable electricity is only a part of the solution.
Highly industrialised nations have realised the need to significantly scale up green hydrogen production for industrial applications to meet the increasing global demands for goods, infrastructure, transport and services etc., while keeping emissions low and within permissible levels. Consequently, such nations, especially the EU, have set their sights on Africa as a source of green hydrogen to stay to meet their Paris Agreement NDCs. This is because green hydrogen production largely depends on having access to huge amounts of renewable electricity. Africa is endowed with vast renewable energy resources, including solar, wind, hydro, geothermal etc.
Several African countries, including Egypt, Namibia, South Africa, Morocco, Mauritania, Tunisia and Niger, have essentially started the green hydrogen economy in Africa with the awards of development licenses, announcements of pilot projects and even green hydrogen alliances with other countries. Germany, in particular, has entered green hydrogen alliances with Morocco, Tunisia and Namibia and is also seeking new partnerships with top oil-producing countries like Nigeria and Angola through its Hydrogen Diplomacy Programme, which seeks to, among other objectives, help oil-dependent economies see green hydrogen as a future energy export commodity.
Strategies for Green Hydrogen in Nigeria
For Nigeria to participate in the new green hydrogen economy, there are several recommended strategies to be implemented
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Developing a (Green) Hydrogen Policy
The Energy Commission of Nigeria (ECN) is charged with developing Nigeria’s energy policies. Its 2014 National Energy Masterplan mentions the exploitation of hydrogen as an energy source and lays out an action plan to achieve this. However, this is yet to be implemented. Therefore, the starting point for any activity in the green hydrogen economy will be developing a Hydrogen Policy. Having a hydrogen policy that considers all sources of hydrogen as opposed to a green hydrogen policy may be the pragmatic pathway to follow in this preliminary period. However, this should preferably lead to a comprehensive Green Hydrogen Policy in the midterm. The green hydrogen policy will outline realistic production targets with timelines, eligible applications/sectors, incentive schemes, market formation, export quota and many other applicable dimensions.
Additionally, because of the dependency of green hydrogen production on renewable electricity, fresh water and land use (for situating plants), it may also be necessary to develop supporting policies (by the relevant authorities) that allow/ease the use of these resources for green hydrogen production. However, the policy process must be iterative, working in tandem with and incorporating insights and lessons from the implementation of pilot projects.
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Developing Pilot Projects
With the foundational policy in place, the government can begin issuing early-stage private developers licenses to develop commercial-scale pilot projects. It may be necessary to adopt the public-private partnership (PPP) project model to spread the initial high risk and any mutual benefits that may be derived from the first series of such projects. Pilot projects will consist of a renewable electricity plant (solar PV/wind etc.) and an electrolyser plant. As a direct input in the production process, it is important to have large amounts of cheap renewable-sourced electricity for the produced green hydrogen to be competitive in the international market. Therefore, the government needs to create an enabling environment to foster grid-scale renewable electricity market development and cost reduction
As a parallel strategy, developing blue hydrogen pilot projects is essential as Nigeria is very rich in natural gas resources. The oil and gas industry is well developed and equipped with the physical infrastructure and commercial structures to support this new energy commodity. This will add local capacity to hydrogen development and other value chain activities.
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Developing Supporting Infrastructure and Markets
The output of every production process has to be needed and useful for value to be placed on it. While creating policies and developing pilot projects, willing off-takers (local and/or international) must be sought out early on to ensure viability. With off-takers available, there will be a need for infrastructure networks and logistics solutions to connect products to the market.
Electricity grid upgrades for the transmission of large amounts of renewable electricity from high RE resource sites to electrolyser plants located close to water resources; gas pipelines retrofitted to allow for hydrogen integration, specialist storage containment units and specialised shipping for international export are some of the supporting infrastructures needed for a green hydrogen economy.
Conclusion
Africa is a very strategic and instrumental region in the energy transition. Precious metals like cobalt, lithium, nickel, and others used in electric vehicle batteries and other energy storage systems have historically been mined in Africa for supply to the rest of the world. With huge renewable energy resources, water resources and a vast landmass, Africa has all it takes to lead the world in green hydrogen production and export. While some regions have already started the race to tap into the green hydrogen economy, Nigeria is yet to begin the journey, although it is not yet late to start.
Nigeria must, however, not rush into the race out of a fear of losing out but rather systematically and pragmatically build up the sector using policy tools, intervention programmes, projects, action plans, partnerships and other strategic tools. With the development of green hydrogen projects will come the rapid scale-up and deployment of grid-scale renewable energy power plants, which could serve the purpose of stabilising the grid, thereby increasing its reliability and driving access to energy for unserved and underserved populations.