Nexus Between Renewable Energy, Seawater and Green Hydrogen Production Ambitions: A Reality Check

For decades, the vast reserves of oil and gas which countries on the Arabian Peninsula possess have driven the Middle East’s growth as a global economic and energy hub. However, the region is currently going through an energy transition phase, and the move away from fossil fuels is one of the biggest challenges that the regional players have to overcome, if they want to maintain the leading position as energy providers worldwide.

A historical track record of exploration, production and investments in technological expertise in the oil and gas industries is now positioning many of the region’s countries as pathfinders, pioneering the transition to more sustainable forms of energy.

The current concern is that the long-term demand projections for oil products is decreasing on a global scale, while the price of the renewable alternatives is still relatively high. However, billions of funds have been allocated for the development of renewable infrastructure and production technology breakthroughs. More or less, such news eases the current concerns and brings the recognition that by increasing the cost-effectiveness of the production of renewables, they can leverage and ensure a smooth process of the energy transition journey. Another essential sustainability pillar is the ability to diversify the exports of the renewable products to local and global consumers, as well as to maintain a stable supply chain, which is already in place and currently is handling the logistics of fossil oil products. Added to this is the strategic advantage of the region’s location between Europe and Asia, giving it the ability to service both markets. And, of course, decades of expertise and experience in exporting traditional energy resources means there are already strong routes into the global market for hydrogen consumers.

The current concern is that the long-term demand projections for oil products is decreasing on a global scale, while the price of the renewable alternatives is still relatively high.

The region has been blessed with an abundance of natural resources and the countries have already established solar and wind energy plans, as well as announcing mega-scale projects. In these particular cases, the low-cost of solar energy means that it has a strong competitive advantage, allowing the production of green hydrogen from inexhaustible carbon-free energy sources. Hydrogen, a gaseous energy carrier with a storage capability, also compliments the intermittent nature of solar and wind production, solving the problem of the potential gaps in energy supply and demand i.e. during nighttime and periods of low wind.

Momentum is building to scale up green hydrogen production in the Middle East and capitalise on rapidly increasing solar and wind capacities as the potential to support industrial decarbonisation. There’s already a substantial global market emerging for green hydrogen in heavy transport – hydrogen buses are already a common sight on streets around the world and other sectors such as rail and logistics will follow.

What is possibly less well understood about hydrogen is the value of convenience – as the cost of vehicles comes down, the convenience factor will become even more significant as hydrogen requires very little behavioral change from current liquid, or gaseous fuels and re-fueling will take only a matter of minutes. This is another big advantage for operators of high utilisation vehicles that can’t afford to be idle for long periods.

As the cost of vehicles comes down, the convenience factor will become even more significant as hydrogen requires very little behavioral change

A strategic network approach of green hydrogen hubs will drive costs down to ensure a sustainable model that can secure the green hydrogen price, helping the Middle East meet net-zero and unlock the export potential.

Three mega projects provide examples:

• There is clear evidence across the region of buy-in to hydrogen’s potential, epitomised by Saudi Arabia’s stated aim of becoming a leading global supplier of hydrogen. Plans are already in place for a multi-billion dollar production plant in the country’s north western region, planned to come on-line by 2025-26.
• Saudi Arabia‘s Green Ammonia project in Neom city will see Air Products, ACWA Power and NEOM collaborate to build the mega facility, while the financial advisor Lazard will help evaluate and allocate the project budget.
• The $5 billion project in NEOM will consist of a 1.2 million tonnes a year green ammonia plant, which will use hydrogen produced from an electrolyser powered by more than 4 GW of solar, wind and storage. Neom city is part of Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman’s, plans to build a zero-carbon city with enormous infrastructure, the cost of which cannot be estimated precisely at this point, but it has been mentioned that it will be somewhere between $100 billion and $200 billion.
• Oman’s international consortium comprised of OQ, which is the Sultanate of Oman’s global integrated energy company, InterContinental Energy, one of the leading dedicated green fuels developers, and EnerTech, a Kuwait government-backed clean energy investor and developer, has announced it is developing an integrated green fuels mega project in Oman.
• The consortium has been collaborating on the project for more than four years, which will consist of 25 GW of renewable solar and wind energy at full capacity to produce millions of tonnes of zero-carbon green hydrogen per annum. The hydrogen can be used locally, exported directly, or converted into green ammonia for international export. The consortium partners will leverage their broad existing commercial relationships and partnerships to secure long-term product sales agreements. Given the site’s strategic location between Europe and Asia, as well as excellent solar irradiance and wind resource facing the Arabian Sea, the development is well-positioned to offer a secure and reliable supply of green fuels globally at a highly competitive price.
• In UAE’s Dubai, DEWA and Siemens Energy are cooperating to generate green hydrogen from solar energy using Siemens’ proprietary electrolyzers, based on PEM technology, powered by the $3.9 billion Noor Energy 1 project, which will be the world’s largest single-site concentrated solar power plant (CSP), generating 700MW of CSP and 250MW of photovoltaics. The collaboration will test and demonstrate an integrated megawatt-scale plant to produce hydrogen using solar energy, store the gas, and then deploy it for re-electrification or other potential uses. The Green Hydrogen Project covers an area of 10,000 square meters at the Outdoor Testing Facility of the DEWA Research and Development Center, which is part of the Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum solar park. During the day, the plant will harness part of the photovoltaic electricity from the solar park and will forward it for green hydrogen production. During the night, the green hydrogen will be converted into electricity to power the city with sustainable energy. In the wind sector, a site in the UAE’s Hajar Mountains has been identified as the ideal location for the UAE’s first wind farm and is expected to have a capacity of 28MW while Saudi Arabia’s 400-megawatt wind farm project, the largest in the Middle East, is currently being developed by a consortium which includes EDF Renewables and Masdar. The UAE’s ambitious approach also includes at least seven hydrogen-related projects underway with work having begun on the construction of their first hydrogen plant and strategic alliances being formed. UAE’s Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure has chosen COP26 in Glasgow as the launchpad for its Hydrogen Leadership Roadmap. According to the senior ministry officials, hydrogen will be crucial to decarbonise industries, transportation, and the fossil fuel sector.

By identifying the best locations, Middle East countries can adapt their business models based on the most effective way to use the available renewable energy and from there, the most efficient green hydrogen production. Solar by day and wind by night, providing a constant supply of renewable energy to push the downstream limits and to adapt synthetic production technologies i.e. Power-To-Liquids. The key to these and other projects that are developing is their ability to optimise production costs.

Solar by day and wind by night, providing a constant supply of renewable energy to push the downstream limits and to adapt synthetic production technologies

Let’s agree that the region will be secured and powered by renewable energy, harnessed by wind and solar parks. So even though a kilogram of green hydrogen has an energy content (HHV) of around 39.4 kWh, based on power input of 52kWh, the efficiency rate can be simply ignored, due to the region’s abundance of renewable energy and its potential to harness it.

The projects are unique and all companies involved will have to overcome different challenges during the development phases and further efforts will be required to maintain the new production assets in good process health for a longer period.

These facilities do have something in common and this is the main feedstock that they will process. For each kilogram of green hydrogen, stoichiometrically will be needed 9 liters of pure and deionised water.

Efficient water splitting depends on catalytic electrodes, which usually require pure water under basic conditions to avoid damage and accumulating impurities and sediments on the surface of the electrodes. Scaling up water splitting to ultimately produce hydrogen fuels has, therefore, been limited by the need for costly desalination and purification processes to obtain enough pure deionised water. Meanwhile, most natural water sources are impure. Around 96.5% of the planet’s water is brackish or seawater, containing dissolved salts and organic matter that are corrosive to standard catalysts, membranes and electrodes.

As it is more than clear, the whole Middle East area has a high-stress level for pure water availability, however, the Arabian Peninsula is surrounded by the Red Sea, Arabian Sea and the adjacent gulfs. The requirement of high purity water for electrolysis and the widespread availability of seawater has led to significant research efforts in developing direct seawater electrolysis technology for hydrogen production.

This means that direct integration of the process consisting of seawater reverse osmosis (SWRO) coupled with proton exchange membrane (PEM) electrolysis is something that will be in higher demand in the near future. The energy consumed for SWRO is found to be negligible in the ME scenario and it will lead to an insignificant increase in the levelized cost of hydrogen (<0.1 $ per kg H2).

So again, assuming that the region will be producing affordable and cheap energy, this will allow seawater desalination costs to drop to these insignificant levels. As an additional benefit, the surplus of processed seawater can be purified further and utilised for the domestic needs of the local population, therefore two of the main problems in the region (sustainable energy and water supply) will have a common solution, powered by renewables.

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