In order to increase the understanding of the role of hydrogen in the industrial energy transition, the Institute for Sustainable Process Technology (ISPT) established the Hydrohub Innovation Program. Within this program, the HyChain project serves a specific purpose: developing and providing a common understanding on the scale of the transition challenge, the available technologies, the correlations, hurdles and tipping points.
The background of HyChain is to gain insight at a strategic level on how the hydrogen-based supply chains produced from green energy of the future will come about and can play a role in the economy of Western Europe and the Netherlands in particular. The question is how industry can make use of hydrogen, and how it will become available. For example, how local production in industry clusters can relate to large-scale imports; how green and blue hydrogen will develop and correlate; what volumes can come available and in which timeframe the transition will take place.
ISPT brought industrial stakeholders in the value chain and knowledge partners together to discover which key questions need to be understood in order to optimally meet the needs for hydrogen during the transition to a low-carbon industry. Based on these questions, the project was divide into the following five stages:
- Understanding demand in industry – Assessment of the current state and future trends
- Understanding overseas supply – Economic analysis of energy carrier production, import, transportation and storage, including import model
- The pieces of the puzzle to connect supply and demand – Technology assessment of the full value chain, including database
- Bringing the pieces together – System assessment of scenarios for the Netherlands
- Understanding the impact – Societal and geopolitical implications
This report summarizes the key findings of the first 3 projects.