Wales' Hydrogen Energy Vision

Wales' Hydrogen Energy Vision

Wales has a number of advantages that can be utilized in the transition to a hydrogen economy:

Our abundant renewable resources provide an opportunity to clean up our energy system. However, one major part of our energy demand is still almost totally dependent on oil-based products, namely transport. Combining our renewable assets with the production of hydrogen can start to overcome the dependence of our transport sector on oil and provide significant environmental benefits.

We possess exceptional competence in a number of industries with direct relevance to the hydrogen economy, namely the automotive, chemical, metals, and microelectronic industries as well as our long-standing expertise in agriculture. To turn this to our competitive advantage will require vision, collaboration and determination.

The National Assembly for Wales (NAfW) has a distinctive statutory duty to promote sustainable development and has set challenging goals for the adoption of renewable energy, seeks to promote renewables to enhance industrial, rural and commercial opportunities and positions Wales as a renewable energy showcase.

 What matters now is how we chose to use these advantages in pursuit of a cleaner future energy system. We face a number of challenges in the transition to a hydrogen economy, but the Vision document outlined how these challenges can be addressed and this transition can be to Wales advantage

Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe. 

  • It is an energy carrier, requiring a primary energy source for its production.
  • Like electricity, it delivers energy in a usable form, but hydrogen is more easily stored.
  • Hydrogen can be produced from a range of renewable and non-renewable sources.
  • To contribute to a low-carbon economy, hydrogen must be produced sustainably, e.g. by electrolysis using renewably generated electricity, or from biomass by microbial fermentation of wet biomass or by thermal processing of woody biomass.
  • Hydrogen is commonly manufactured, stored and distributed to a range of industries.
  • Worldwide R&D focuses on developing more economical and sustainable methods of production, improved methods of storage and the development of improved end-use technologies, including fuel cells, combustion engines and turbines.
  • Hydrogen has major potential as a clean transport fuel that can be produced from a number of indigenous resources and is not dependent on imported fossil fuel.
  • Hydrogen could also play a role in energy storage and may alleviate some of the problems associated with the intermittency of solar, wind and marine electricity generation.
  • Hydrogen can be converted to electricity via stationary or portable fuel cells for applications ranging from buildings to mobile phones.
  • In use, hydrogen is clean, the only by-product in a fuel cell being water vapour, so as well as eliminating green house gas emissions, hydrogen can also combat atmospheric pollution at local level.

 

USW Logo
LCRI
SERC
ERDF logo