SOLAR AND CLEAN FUELS SECTOR TREND ANALYSIS
To make this a reality, we need to continue development of battery technology for the hourly to 12 hourly storage needs, using lower cost minerals/metals to drive costs down and increase capability, and then push hard on power to liquid/gas options and making them economically viable. Policy and financial support by governments in these areas is crucial, but those countries that win the race will be in an excellent position to export these solutions globally, so it would seem like a good investment. In your view, what role do emerging technologies, such as AI and machine learning, play in optimising clean energy generation and consumption? I think AI is going to be very useful as we try to optimise our future energy systems, but we will need to figure out the best way to employ their capabilities and that aspect is relatively nascent. Our future grids will become more complicated, in terms of distribution of generation systems and sizes, directional flow of power across local and macro grids, distributed stationary and mobile (vehicle) power storage systems, prevalence of smart metering solutions at consumer and industrial levels, demand side response systems, weather induced variation in power production and inter-seasonal changes and other aspects. Monitoring and controlling these systems will be challenging: making the most of them and maximising their efficiency will be a mammoth and unending task. AI would appear to be perfectly suited to this type of task, and I think this is where it will make its biggest impact. With increasing investment in green hydrogen, how do you see its potential to complement or compete with solar, wind, and nuclear energy? I think we’re missing the point here by overplaying the “green” card. What we must ensure is hydrogen brought to the market is beneficial, or at least non-detrimental, to the climate. That means we need “clean” hydrogen not necessarily “green” hydrogen, and by specifying “clean” we widen the production mechanisms to include non-electrolyzing methods. We need to focus on the prize: it would be very useful to our 2050 net zero ambitions to have hydrogen as an economic fuel option. Within the hard-to-abate industrial and transport sectors, hydrogen could have a very wide contribution and enabling function. But to do that, it needs to be able to compete economically against the other options. We need an efficient, large scale hydrogen economy in place.
PROFESSOR PHIL HART Prof. Phil Hart is Chief Researcher at the Renewable and Sustainable Energy Research Center at the Technology Innovation Institute (TII), a cutting-edge UAE-based sci- entific research center. He is responsible for research and development of the next generation of energy systems and solutions - from fuel cells and batteries to alternative fuels, bioenergy and renewable energy production, and carbon capture and reduction technologies, as well as energy system design and modelling. He has more than 35 years of experience in the field of energy and power technologies. He specializes in sustainable net zero energy infrastructure and technologies, next generation energy systems, wind and marine energy systems, and the role/impact of business and society within the energy transition.
As we move to a renewable based power grid, applications for direct use of electricity are numerous. Diverting these to produce hydrogen feels somewhat inefficient and could prevent electrification of other more beneficial areas. So, in my opinion, alternative methods of hydrogen production at scale with minimal climate impact should be investigated, and invested in. That means reforming technologies applied to natural gas have a core role to play here, so long as we are rigorous about how we capture and store away or use the CO2 that is produced. If we maintain the prize as wanting to establish a hydrogen economy, take pragmatic decisions about how we get there, and then go for it wholeheartedly, hydrogen could play a pivotal role in energy storage and in direct displacement of fossil fuel use in hard to abate applications. I wrote a piece about this type of approach some time ago called “Pragmatic Idealism”, I think the title says it all. .
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THE FUTURE OF ENERGY
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