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Addressing the need to scale hydrogen solutions
Richard Spires
Director Of Technology Development at Wood
As momentum builds around the potential and versatility of hydrogen, much of the hype has been focused on cleaning up conventional production from hydrocarbon feedstock or developing electrolysis technology for water feedstock. An alternative is creating clean hydrogen from a bio-feedstock.
As the UK's hydrogen economy continues to evolve, attention is increasingly focused on identifying the production pathways best suited to specific applications. Alongside electrolytic and other low-carbon hydrogen routes, bio-hydrogen offers the potential to recover value from waste streams while supporting transport decarbonisation and circular economy objectives.
Bio-hydrogen and transport decarbonisation
According to the World Meteorological Organization’s annual greenhouse gas bulletin, the impact on carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations from pandemic-related economic disruptions is no bigger than the normal year-to-year fluctuations from natural ocean or plant cycles.
Transport and domestic heating accounts for more than half of the UK’s CO2 emissions and this will continue to rise if we don’t act now. If we are really serious about achieving net-zero targets in the next 25 to 30 years, then developing sustainable alternatives is of paramount importance. On its own, UK transport is responsible for 33% of UK emissions.
Hydrogen is increasingly viewed as a potential solution for transport applications that are difficult to electrify, including heavy-duty vehicles and other sectors where energy density, range or operational requirements can present challenges for battery-only solutions.
As a clean alternative to fossil fuels, hydrogen can play a significant role in the global energy transition. Unlike traditional fuels, burning hydrogen produces no carbon dioxide with water being the main combustion product. As a low-carbon energy carrier, hydrogen has the potential to support future energy needs while contributing to wider decarbonisation efforts.
Turning waste into low-carbon fuel
Innovate UK recently awarded Advanced Biofuel Solutions Ltd (ABSL), University College London (UCL) and Wood a £250,000 grant to design a production line that generates high purity bio-hydrogen to meet the demand for fuel cell electric vehicles.
This project aims to develop a new source of hydrogen to help give transport providers in both public and private sectors the confidence to adopt this important new fuel.
By converting waste-derived feedstocks into hydrogen and renewable fuels, projects such as this demonstrate how the energy transition and resource recovery can work together to reduce emissions while extracting value from material that might otherwise go to waste. The long-term ambition is a transport system with significantly lower emissions, supported by sustainable fuels such as bio-hydrogen.
The role of gasification and methanation technology
A portion of waste feedstock processed at ABSL's Swindon facility will be converted into bio-hydrogen. This will operate alongside ABSL's bio-substitute natural gas (bioSNG) process, which employs Wood's patented methanation technology, VESTA.
Methanation is the process of converting synthesis gas (syngas) into substitute natural gas (SNG) or renewable natural gas that can be used across existing energy systems. VESTA was developed to support low-carbon fuel production from a range of feedstocks, including biomass, waste-derived syngas, biogas and renewable hydrogen-based pathways.
One of the advantages of renewable natural gas is that it can be transported and distributed through existing gas infrastructure, helping connect new low-carbon fuel production technologies with established energy networks.
We expect that the bio-hydrogen generated by this method will be cost comparable or cheaper than green hydrogen produced via electrolysis using renewable electricity.
By demonstrating that affordable and innovative technologies can deliver sustainable hydrogen for fuel cell electric vehicles, it will show that bio-hydrogen – purified, compressed and loaded into tankers for transportation to hydrogen filling stations – can generate negative greenhouse gas emissions when combined with carbon capture technology.
Scaling innovation from demonstration to deployment
Demonstration projects play an important role in proving technical feasibility, but large-scale deployment remains the next challenge for the hydrogen sector. Developing reliable production capacity, supporting infrastructure and commercially viable business models will be essential if hydrogen is to contribute meaningfully to long-term decarbonisation goals. As the industry continues to focus on scaling up hydrogen production, moving successful demonstration projects towards commercial deployment will be critical to unlocking the wider benefits of the hydrogen economy.
As the sector continues to develop, no single production pathway is likely to meet every requirement. Bio-hydrogen has the potential to complement other low-carbon hydrogen technologies, providing additional flexibility while making productive use of existing waste streams.
Bio-hydrogen's role in the wider hydrogen economy
As the hydrogen sector grows, finding the right production solution to achieving carbon reduction and meeting future energy demand is critical in realising its potential. This will require a combination of technologies, infrastructure and investment to support different applications and end users.
Bio-hydrogen is unlikely to be the sole answer to transport decarbonisation, but it has the potential to play an important role alongside other low-carbon hydrogen pathways as part of a sustainable energy mix.
Collaboration and innovation will be key to accelerating the UK's efforts to reach net-zero by 2050.
