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Instead of using Hydrogen as a pure component, it can Future hydrogen demand and infrastructure
be further utilised in methanol production or ammonia development priorities mainly focus on Hydrogen’s
production or synthetic natural gas production, which possible widespread use in the transportation sector.
can be used as alternative fuels. This suggests that research and development focus
should be developing affordable hydrogen fuel cell
Hydrogen has a wide application range. It has created technology to drive hydrogen growth.
interest amongst stakeholders of several industry
sectors such as renewable electricity, industrial gas, Hydrogen can replace fossil fuels that are widely
automobiles, oil and gas, steel, carbon capture, etc. used for industrial combustion processes in furnaces
It is not only hydrogen producers but also includes and boilers. The hydrogen fuel cell has the potential
those who use or could use, Hydrogen as a feedstock to generate electricity on a small scale. It can be an
for various industrial applications. Due to the renewed alternative to replace diesel generators commonly used
interest amongst different industry sectors, it has as a source for emergency power back up in industrial,
become imperative for the governments to create a commercial and residential installations.
roadmap to develop hydrogen infrastructure.
Hydrogen Production
Hydrogen can be helpful in various ways to achieve
energy security. Hydrogen can be integrated into Currently, most of the Hydrogen (75%) produced
the electricity infrastructure, by converting electrical globally uses natural gas as a feedstock. Another
energy (supplied by renewable sources) to produce commonly used resource is coal, which accounts
Hydrogen and then reconvert it back to electrical for 23% of the total Hydrogen produced. Today’s
energy. Further, such conversion of electrical energy total hydrogen production is about 70 Mt, and this
to hydrogen production enables Hydrogen promotion contributes 830 Mt of carbon dioxide per year to the
for fuel applications and helps reduce energy imports environment. With an increased interest in developing
in the form of oil and gas. Fossil fuel-based hydrogen- hydrogen-based economy, demand for Hydrogen is
producing processes can be amended to employ further expected to increase significantly. Therefore, it
carbon capture technologies to produce Hydrogen is evident that unless current technologies producing
cleanly. A right infrastructure must be developed for Hydrogen are targeted to minimise carbon dioxide
exploiting the use of Hydrogen as a low carbon energy emissions, the hydrogen-based economy in the future
source. shall not help reduce carbon footprint and will not
help address global climate change conditions. It is,
Hydrogen Users and Growth Potential therefore, necessary to develop options for producing
Hydrogen without contributing to carbon dioxide
Majority of the Hydrogen is presently consumed for emissions.
industrial applications. Petroleum refining processes
account for one-third of hydrogen consumption. Other Another commercially available technology for
significant users are producers of Ammonia (27%) and hydrogen production is based on splitting of a water
Methanol (11%). A small percentage (3%) of Hydrogen molecule by electrolysis. Water electrolysis methods
is utilised in steel production using direct ore reduction contribute only 2% to the world hydrogen production.
technology.

The Hydrogen required in the middle distillate’s
desulphurisation process in petroleum refineries is
mostly (60%) produced from natural gas. Considering
stricter emission norms for automobiles, hydrogen
demand for desulphurisation is expected to increase
by 7% in the next ten years. However, with the
electric vehicle revolution gaining momentum, this
may dampen the market in the long term. Majority
of the future hydrogen demand will arise from new
applications such as transportation.

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