Green Hydrogen – a future solution for Malta

Notice how the budget 2024 has been hailed as if it is a pre-election budget laced with a strong social aspect towards pensioners and low-income persons

There are a number of novelties, as is the case with every budget but an interesting aspect which has hit the headlines this year concerns a hydrogen strategy. The finance minister reveals a plan to develop a hydrogen energy strategy. The government would like to encourage diesel-powered industrial processes that cannot go electric to switch to hydrogen. There are many reasons that speak for hydrogen: meeting climate targets for 2030, greenhouse gas neutrality targets for 2050, energy transition or the latest pressing reason reaching independence in energy supply from Russia.

In the renewables consultation document issued this year, there was no mention of producing hydrogen by electrolysis. Yet, now the focus seems to change and Castille wakes up to sense the pressure. It wants to start speeding up the development of hydrogen. PKF has invested in hosting hydrogen themed conferences and plans to introduce its business partners to bid for renewables and hydrogen generation, when the legislation comes on line.

How can we follow the success of other advanced countries like Germany? In its national hydrogen strategy of 2020, the German federal government recognises the potential and the opportunities of hydrogen. The core mission is to replace fossil fuels particularly gaseous and liquid energy sources, which are an integral part of Germany´s energy supply.

Hydrogen is seen as the key element of this energy transition, whereas only green hydrogen, which is hydrogen produced by using renewable energy, is considered to be sustainable in the long term. Even though hydrogen technology is expensive and not yet affordable for all, it will turn into a more affordable solution in the long run.

With oil prices slowly approaching the €100 per barrel, this is another incentive to switch to renewables. On 3 June 2020, the Coalition Committee in Germany adopted a ‘package for the future’ which makes available another 7 billion euros for speeding up the market rollout of hydrogen technology and another 2 billion euros for fostering international partnerships.

This only shows a selection of efforts being made by the German government to succeed with its hydrogen strategy. Looking at where Germany currently stands, examples of the use of hydrogen technology have existed for years. In the east of Germany, the hybrid power plant in Prenzlau produces hydrogen with surplus wind and solar kilowatt-hours and uses it as storage.

In Brandenburg, the coaldominated energy region of Lausitz is to become a hydrogen region. There are plans for a further 800 wind turbines to drive forward the production of green hydrogen. Hydrogen technology also seems very promising in terms of Co2free inland navigation, where technologically speaking, mature solutions are ready to be presented in five years' time.

Since 2015, the Berlin-based company H2Mobility has been building a Germany-wide filling station network for hydrogen particular of interest for bus operators and haulage companies. Most notably, more and more Länder are building and installing hydrogen-ready pipelines to be connected to the nationwide supply network in the future. Other examples include the successful Australian company Fortescue Future Industries (FFI) that plans to export hydrogen to Germany and other European countries on a large scale.

The aim is to "realise the delivery of up to five million tonnes of green, renewable hydrogen per year to Europe by 2030". The "historic partnership" underlines the common goal of driving forward the decarbonisation of Europe and strengthening the security of supply of green energy at a time when Europe needs to reduce its energy dependence on Russia as quickly as possible. Can the policy for generating hydrogen in Malta succeed to stay clear of a cobweb of red tape that usually slows down development of such an exciting concept.