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New Energy World magazine logo
New Energy World magazine logo
ISSN 2753-7757 (Online)

Hydrogen compression: the missing link in the hydrogen value chain

2/10/2024

8 min read

Feature

Lots of silver coloured industrial pipework running horizontally across picture, with tank in background Photo: Engineered Solutions
East Midlands Hydrogen, which launched in November 2023, connects supply and demand through a new Cadent hydrogen pipeline

Photo: Engineered Solutions

The main technology involved in joining the production side to the consumption side in the hydrogen value chain is a gas compressor. These are examined in the Energy Institute’s new research report: Gas Compressors for 100% Hydrogen. The new report identifies six typical major applications, ranging up to very large flowrate compressors for gas pipelines and geological storage, where the biggest unknowns exist currently, writes Ian Arbon CEng CEnv FEI, Senior Partner of Engineered Solutions, a sustainable engineering and management consultancy.

In a bid to fulfil international ambitions to combat climate change by reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, there has been a proliferation of hydrogen projects in what has become known as the ‘hydrogen value chain’ (H2VC) in the past few years. These are often localised projects with little by way of national or international co-ordination, which has led to most of these projects being located in either the production or the consumption sectors of the H2VC.

 

Whilst there are many worthwhile projects in both of these sectors, little thought appears to have been given to how the two sectors can be joined together. For example, how does ‘green’ hydrogen produced in relatively small quantities from electrolysers at low pressures actually reach its market of, say, a high-pressure refuelling station located on the other side of the country?

 

Or, how does ‘blue’ hydrogen, produced in larger quantities, from steam methane reformers (SMRs) or autothermal reformers (ATRs) – reach its much greater markets in the process industries, cement making or steel making?

 

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