Is hydrogen the answer to achieving net zero? A Q&A with Net Zero Industry Wales CEO, Ben Burggraaf

Net Zero Industry Wales (NZIW) is a not-for-profit body which provides independent guidance and support to Welsh industries in their transition to net zero.

Our CEO, Ben Burggraaf, is a combustion specialist with practical experience in using hydrogen, and in this Q&A he’ll share why it is one of the answers to a low carbon future — alongside electrification, energy and resource efficiency, and carbon capture utilisation & storage (CCUS).

Hi Ben. To begin, can you outline Wales’ net zero goals?

Of course — alongside several other countries, Wales has made a commitment to reach a net zero emissions economy by 2050. This is in response to climate science showing that, to halt climate change, carbon emissions must be significantly reduced. By taking action straight away, the cumulative effect between now and 2050 means we can significantly limit global warming.

‘Net zero’ means that, in a production or process, any emissions generated are balanced by absorbing an equivalent amount from the atmosphere. This is necessary, because for the climate to stabilise and global warming to be limited, carbon emissions need to fall on average to zero.

With heavy industry responsible for more than 50 per cent of Wales’ carbon emissions, it is crucial that we support the uptake of low carbon technologies and energy sources — including hydrogen. Doing this will mean we can continue to produce high-value goods and services in Wales and protect jobs at the same time.

Is hydrogen new?

Hydrogen is the most abundant chemical element in the universe and has been part of our lives for over a century. It’s used as part of chemical and oil refining processes, it’s used in steelmaking, and in recent decades it has been used in the semiconductor industry.

Across the United Kingdom and Wales, vast quantities of hydrogen are produced and used within industrial processes. Hydrogen is vital in producing products like fertiliser (ammonia), petrol, diesel, steel and computer chips to name a few — which most of us use on a regular, if not daily, basis.

The application of hydrogen is relatively new in its use as a fuel – in other words, to displace natural gas or other fossil fuels within industrial processes, transport (cars, buses, heavy goods vehicles) and buildings. However, used here, hydrogen is key to supporting Wales’ journey to net zero, and specifically in situations where electrification isn’t a viable option to decarbonise.

But even here, hydrogen as fuel source isn’t truly new. In Wales, areas that were connected to the gas network up until the late 1960s used what is known as “Town Gas”. Town gas was typically made up of around 50 per cent hydrogen and was supplied to homes, businesses and industries before the gas network was converted to 100 per cent natural gas from the 1970s onward.

Another thing people may not know is that Wales has been at the forefront of the development of hydrogen for a very long time. The hydrogen fuel cell was first developed in 1842 by William Grove, a Welsh judge and physical scientist. Born in Swansea in 1811, Grove showed that water could be separated into hydrogen and oxygen (the two constituent parts of water) and then recombined in a fuel cell.

The fuel cell allows hydrogen to react with oxygen in the air, producing electricity and heat which powers vehicles and homes. Having used a fuel cell at my own home in Cardiff over the last five years, I can say that it has reliably kept my house warm without any issues.

Where can I find hydrogen being used a fuel in Wales?

Following in the footsteps of William Grove, in 2007 the University of South Wales established its Hydrogen Research Centre in Baglan, near Port Talbot. Since then, the Centre has successfully demonstrated the safe production, distribution, and use of hydrogen to power vehicles. It has been a constant and reliable source of hydrogen for users of fuel cell electric vehicles in these areas. For example, the two vehicles used by the Mid and West Wales Fire Service have been powered by hydrogen since 2017.

In March 2023, at the same site in Baglan, Protium commissioned the first commercial green hydrogen production facility, which went on to deliver fleet and transport trials across the UK and Wales, as well as providing hydrogen to residential customers who were happy to switch from gas.

More recently, Panasonic has commissioned and opened its renewable energy demonstration facility at its microwave production plant in Pentwyn, Cardiff. It uses solar power, batteries, and hydrogen fuel cells — produced in Baglan, Port Talbot, to heat and power the production facility.

Many of these facilities are happy to arrange site visits for people to learn more and share knowledge and experience.

Is hydrogen safe?

Opponents of hydrogen as fuel often use the images of the Hindenburg disaster in 1937, in which a hydrogen-filled zeppelin caught fire and quickly became engulfed in flames. The picture is often used to remind people of the ‘dangers’ of hydrogen.

But ask yourself: why would we need to use a picture that is almost a century old to argue that hydrogen is unsafe, when we know hydrogen is already part of our daily lives? If it were unsafe, surely there would be more recent examples of failures and disasters to remind people of the dangers involved in using it?

Don’t get me wrong — hydrogen is very flammable and reactive and, similar to natural gas and electricity, it needs to be handled and managed with care and respect.

From my own experience as a combustion engineer in the steel industry, incidents of concern tend to occur when processes are changed (e.g. fuel switching), are stopped for maintenance work, or when people become complacent about the obvious risks (e.g. smoking a cigarette when fuelling a car at a petrol station).

So, the “management of change”, an important element of Process Safety principles, which are already widely adopted and established in heavy industry, is an important feature of the introduction of hydrogen as a fuel source. But this isn’t a technological challenge — it’s a cultural one, and one that we should be able to easily overcome.

UK industry has been using large quantities of hydrogen, produced and used in the UK, and has demonstrated that hydrogen can be used safely. The transport of hydrogen across our road network, using purpose-built vehicles known as tube trailers, has also been widely established as a safe means of transportation.

So, similar to electricity, natural gas, petrol, diesel and any other energy source, hydrogen has its risks during production, transport and use. But that shouldn’t put us off — and I’m of the firm opinion that hydrogen can be used just as safely as natural gas.

What’s next for hydrogen in Wales?

Alongside electricity, hydrogen plays an important role in the transition to net zero. It’s estimated that Wales needs to develop up to 10,000 MW of low-carbon hydrogen production capacity by 2040 to deliver on its decarbonisation targets.

The development of hydrogen production needs to be done alongside the development of wind, solar and tidal energy production, some of which will be used to generate hydrogen (in this context known as green hydrogen). These means of energy generation will also make best use of one of Wales’s most abundant natural resources: its famous weather!

Wales already provides approximately 20 per cent of the UK’s energy needs and, through this, helps to secure its energy resilience. This is done mainly through the Port of Milford Haven, and its associated infrastructure, to transport the energy produced in Wales to other areas of the UK or Europe. It’s well placed to continue to play this role, both during and after the transition to net zero.

The crucial role Wales plays is increasingly being recognised by national and international developers, some of which are now seeking to invest in hydrogen production here on the ground. Several developers like Haush, H2 Energy, Protium, and RWE have recently gained planning approval to build their own hydrogen production facilities over the next few years.

These facilities are key in underpinning the delivery of the South Wales Industrial Cluster (SWIC) plan, which demonstrated that around 50 per cent of industrial emissions are dependent on fuel switching i.e. moving away from natural gas or other fossil fuels (e.g. coal and oil).

However, the production capacity of these facilities will not be enough to deliver the volumes needed to decarbonise and retain industry in Wales. Despite their size, they will only deliver a couple of per cent of the total capacity needed to decarbonise.

That’s why we need these hydrogen projects to be funded and developed within SWIC. SWIC has received significant support from Innovate UK (google the Milford Haven CO2 Project, and Hyline Cymru) to provide the scale of infrastructure needed to ramp up low-carbon hydrogen production to a level that allows industry to decarbonise and thrive in Wales. If we can do this, we will be able to hit our net zero targets whilst continuing to provide well-paid jobs for current and future generations here in Wales.

Ben Burggraaf is CEO of Net Zero Industry Wales.