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Assessing the emissions impact of grid-connected hydrogen production

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The emissions impact of the time-matching requirement between grid-connected electrolytic hydrogen production and contracted renewables has been the focus of a vigorous policy debate. Energy system model-based analysis of grid-connected hydrogen production demonstrates that emissions impacts under any time-matching requirement are highly sensitive to the definition of additionality and region-specific policies.

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Fig. 1: Emissions and costs for electrolytic H2 under binding renewable electricity targets.

References

  1. US Congress H.R.5376: Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (117th Congress, 2022). This US legislation introduces the emissions-indexed production tax credit for hydrogen.

  2. Ricks, W., Xu, Q. & Jenkins, J. D. Minimizing emissions from grid-based hydrogen production in the United States. Environ. Res. Lett. 18, 014025 (2023). This paper reports that hourly time matching is required for hydrogen to be considered low carbon.

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  3. Zeyen, E., Riepin, I. & Brown, T. Temporal regulation of renewable supply for electrolytic hydrogen. Zenodo https://zenodo.org/records/8324521 (2023). This preprint reports that annual time matching might be sufficient for hydrogen to be considered low carbon.

  4. MIT Energy Initiative. DOLPHYN model. Github https://github.com/macroenergy/DOLPHYN (2023). The open-source energy systems model deployed in the presented analysis.

  5. Ruhnau, O. & Schiele, J. Flexible green hydrogen: the effect of relaxing simultaneity requirements on project design, economics, and power sector emissions. Energy Policy 182, 113763 (2023). This paper presents an analysis of the granular project-specific economics of H2 production under different time-matching requirements.

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This is a summary of: Giovanniello, M. A. et al. The influence of additionality and time-matching requirements on the emissions from grid-connected hydrogen production. Nat. Energy https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-023-01435-0 (2024).

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Assessing the emissions impact of grid-connected hydrogen production. Nat Energy 9, 119–120 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-023-01445-y

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