Nordic green hydrogen technology processing industry projects use digital technologies to reduce production costs.
Green hydrogen is produced from renewable energy sources by the electrolysis of water. Green hydrogen has a significantly lower carbon footprint than grey hydrogen. Hydrogen is harmless to the atmosphere and can be stowed and converted into electricity and heat. It is an important part of the energy equation, and hydrogen is a major potential renewable energy source. Global Green Hydrogen Market was worth USD 1.45 billion in 2021 and is expected to reach USD 75.72 billion by 2030, growing at a CAGR of 55.1% during the forecast period 2021-2030.
IT solution group Hexagon, based in Stockholm, has collaborated with Hydrogen Utility (H2U), one of Australia’s largest hydrogen infrastructure developers, to digitize its green hydrogen construction plants.
Through their strategic cooperation, H2U and Hexagon can combine their expertise in integrating industrial facility digital ecosystems with their designs for green hydrogen and green ammonia plants. The collaboration aims to provide best-in-class digital asset management to support ongoing technological developments in the global green hydrogen revolution.
Hexagon provides digital twin technology that uses computer using real-world data, programs to anticipate how a process or product will operate under industrial production conditions. The development of quick application areas necessary for green hydrogen to offer deep decarbonization in the industrial and energy sectors can be supported by the digital twin framework approach, which also allows for the measurement of cost efficiencies.
The PPM subsidiary of Hexagon (previously Intergraph Process, Power & Marine) will be tasked with enabling H2U to incorporate its digital twin platform as part of the hydrogen plant digitization initiative. To increase efficiency and lower risk, digital twin manages every asset lifecycle phase, like engineering, designing, financing, construction, and operation.
Ambitious scope
Hexagon’s technology will be used across H2U’s planned the pipeline of top-notch industrial green hydrogen infrastructure efforts in Australia and New Zealand due to the ambitious breadth of the international alliance.
Meanwhile, Semcon has joined a Swedish-Norwegian consortium with Hystar to develop new digital-supported electrolyzer technology to produce green, sustainable hydrogen in Nordic cross-border collaboration.
The industrial consortium, led by Semcon and Hystar, is focused on delivering large-scale green, sustainable hydrogen production based on new electrolyzer technology using digitally supported automation. The primary goal is to create an integrated technology solution that can produce up to 150% more hydrogen while using no more energy than current industry processes.
The project’s next stage is to find feasible solutions to automate the production of electrolyzer stacks, which convert electricity to hydrogen and oxygen. These innovative mass manufacturing methods are required to revolutionize the production of electrolyzers.
Although hydrogen production technology based on polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) electrolyzers are common and well developed; large-scale hydrogen production requires advanced automatic and flexible stack production processes.
The main target of the semcon supported Hystar project is to utilize digital solutions and engineering to reduce the cost of green hydrogen.
Conceptual model
The Hystar-Semcon partnership is working to complete the project’s design concept stage by the third quarter of 2022. The next goal is to test all of the concept’s critical elements by the third quarter of 2023. The ultimate goal of the project is to have the tested concept fully defined and ready for industrial deployment by the second quarter of 2024.
The possible market demand for green renewable hydrogen, which accounts for about 1% of global industrial and mobility hydrogen consumption, is expected to grow steadily in the coming years.
On April 20, 2022, Nel, a dedicated hydrogen supply group based in Norway, opened its first digitally supported automated electrolyzer production facility in Herya, southwest of Oslo.
Green hydrogen’s falling cost will open up new application areas where green hydrogen is the best or only option for decarbonization. The key is to scale up and automate. This will significantly reduce the unit cost of electrode production. Nel’s goal is to deliver sustainable green hydrogen at $1.50/kg, which would require a 75% reduction in capital expenditures from today’s levels.
Through digitization, Nordic companies are driving cost reductions in the production of green hydrogen.