NEWS & INSIGHTS | Opinion
1GW UK Green Hydrogen Project Targets £6.5 Billion Private Investment
Luca Corradi
Luca works to bring “the outside in”, connecting innovators and academics across sectors and disciplines, to explore the latest technologies that could be adopted to address oil and gas industry challenges. Leading The Net Zero Technology Centre’s horizon scanning activity, he identifies emerging technology trends, cutting through the hype to identify potential areas of impact and application. With a background in business and organisational change leadership, Luca has developed a strong network and is passionate about harnessing this to deliver the next generation of the net zero energy industry.
Outside work Luca loves reading, music and travel. He is married with two young daughters and a dog. He enjoys the rare motorbike ride in Scotland and even rarer ski trip on the Alps.
More to net zero news: Energy and AI; European Wind Strategy; Project HySpeed
Chief Technology Officer at NZTC, Luca Corradi, and his team closely monitor the global net zero landscape. They follow the trends, policies, investments, and technological innovations that, together, bring the world closer to its shared climate goals. Learn more about our horizon scanning service. This week, Luca and his team look at renewables role in powering AI data centres, a strategy to enhance policies and funding for wind Research & Innovation, and explore 1GW UK green hydrogen initiative for scaling production and reducing costs.
The IEA’s report on Energy and AI analyses the growing connection between energy and AI
In recent years, artificial intelligence (AI) has gone from an academic pursuit to an industry with trillions of dollars at stake. As a result, it has experienced a step change in capabilities, driven by falling computation costs, a surge in data availability, and technical breakthroughs. AI needs energy to power data centres but simultaneously has the potential to transform the energy sector.
The IEA predicts data centre electricity consumption will more than double by 2030 with half of generation met by renewables. However, beyond 2030 this increased demand will be primarily met by nuclear, solar and wind. This will lead to a peak in emissions before a steady decline.
However, AI’s adoption rate, capability, efficiency improvements and it’s ability to resolve bottlenecks in the energy industry cause large uncertainties. There are a wide range of applications for AI in energy. Such as, designing facilities, optimisation, automation, the operation of energy systems, and aiding scientific discovery.
The oil and gas industry has been an early adopter of AI, using it to optimise exploration, production, maintenance and safety. But AI-related skills are much lower in the energy sector than other sectors. Although, large parts of the energy system are fragmented, and individual companies and organisations can be reluctant to share data.
Global electricity generation for data centres and the associated CO2 emissions in the Base Case, 2020-2035
Source: IEA Energy and AI report
Report by ETIPWind represents the blueprint of a common European strategy to enhance policies and funding for wind Research & Innovation
In Europe, Research and Innovation (R&I) funding has been instrumental to turning wind into an established industry. However R&I funding is fragmented and lacks focus and direction. The Strategic Energy and Technology (SET) Plan community on wind energy agree on a common European strategy for wind research and competitiveness by 2050. The strategy is based on five long-term targets to guide public and private R&I investments from now until 2050:
- Wind industry should be healthy and competitive at a global scale. Currently 99.9% of installed European turbines are made by European manufacturers, but installations need to double to meet 2030 energy targets. R&I is needed to scale up production and fill gaps in supply chains.
- Wind industry should harness the potential of AI, digitalisation and automation with high cybersecurity standards. In the past few years, the European wind industry has invested heavily on digital solutions to optimise operation and maintenance, but further R&I is needed to harness its full potential.
- Wind should be the backbone of a climate-neutral energy system. The European Commission expects wind to provide half of Europe’s electricity by 2050. R&I is needed to demonstrate key technologies.
- Wind farms are fully circular. Wind has a recyclability rate of 90% but the strategy targets commercial deployment of zero-waste, recyclable and/or circular wind turbines by 2050.
- Society should actively support and recognise wind energy as indispensable.
Expected and needed annual wind energy installations in the EU 2025-2030
Source: ETOPWind Report
UK green hydrogen initiative aims to scale hydrogen production, cut costs and drive local supply chain growth
Project HySpeed is a 1GW green hydrogen project in the UK aiming to build a green hydrogen ecosystem. This project aims to reduce costs and unlock over £6.5 billion of private investment. They also seeks to ensure 50% UK content throughout the project. This would be a significant contribution to the UK Government target of 10GW of low-carbon hydrogen production capacity by 2030.
The hydrogen production sites would be located across the UK from Scotland to South-West England. The value chain includes upstream power generation, hydrogen compressors and storage, and tube trailers to transport hydrogen.
Industries that would utilise the produced hydrogen include the bus and coach sector, non-road mobile machinery and chemical manufacturers.
The vision is led by the HydraB Group comprising of hydrogen specialists Hygen Energy and Ryze Power, zero-emission vehicle manufacturer Wrightbus and investor HYCAP Group. Moreover, the project has the backing of several companies including Centrica, National Gas, and ITM Power.
Image Source: hyspeed.eco
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