As the world urgently seeks to tackle CO2 emissions, renewable energy and electrified mobility are accelerating global electrification. Hydrogen is an ideal solution to decarbonization challenges.
Hydrogen as an energy carrier
Hydrogen has strong policy backing as ambitious decarbonization targets unfold around the world. As governments develop specific hydrogen strategies, and the costs of technologies fall, investments in the hydrogen sector continue to expand.
Hydrogen can be extracted from fossil fuels and biomass, from water, or a mix of both. Today, 75% of the world’s 70-million-tonne hydrogen production comes from natural gas—or 6% of global natural gas use. Gas is followed by coal, which plays a dominant role in China. Finally, a small fraction of hydrogen is produced from oil or electricity.
Currently, hydrogen production methods are commonly classified by “colors”:
The unique clean/green hydrogen is produced by separating water into hydrogen and oxygen via electrolysis. Solid oxide electrolyzers using ceramic (solid oxide) cells have higher conversion efficiency compared with other forms of electrolysis, such as alkaline or proton-exchange-membrane (PEM) technologies. The global electrolysis market is expected to grow over 40 times from 2019 to 2023, as ambitious decarbonization projects are launched. Gigafactories will become the norm.
It is expected that, by 2050, renewables will heavily increase their share in the energy mix to more than 40%. With such a large share of renewables in the mix, energy carriers like hydrogen will be needed to transfer this decarbonized primary energy to the energy demand while effectively balancing the intermittency and inflexibility of generating sources.
In this regard, Schlumberger recognizes green hydrogen as a critical path to supplying our energy needs, fueling heavy transportation, and serving industries with no other economically viable alternative to fossil fuels. Combined with renewable electricity, green hydrogen will contribute toward achieving the net-zero ambitions already set by many countries and companies.
We believe that hydrogen is a critical energy carrier that will enable countries to meet their decarbonization ambitions. In the next 30 years, hydrogen production could account for 20% of total energy demand.
Schlumberger New Energy is collaborating with strategic partners to foster the new ecosystem needed to accelerate the development and industrialization of affordable, clean hydrogen production. Building on technologies developed by the CEA over the last decade, we have ambitious growth plans for technology that will change the way clean hydrogen is produced.
The partnership brings together outstanding science and advanced engineering to accelerate the development of a core technology to unlock affordable hydrogen production, energy storage, and fuel applications at scale.
Genvia, a clean hydrogen production technology venture, aims to achieve the highest system efficiency using significantly less electricity per kilogram of hydrogen produced than is possible with current technologies. The Genvia technology is the first of its kind with the flexibility to switch between electrolysis and fuel cell functions.
The new venture will accelerate the development and first industrial deployment of the CEA high-temperature reversible solid oxide electrolyzer technology—the most efficient and cost-effective technology for clean hydrogen production.
Leveraging Schlumberger technology industrialization experience, the first Genvia manufacturing pilot line will be established at a Schlumberger manufacturing facility in Béziers, France in 2021. Genvia will also set up a Technology Center colocated with the CEA in Grenoble, France to fast-track industrialization and the maturing of the technology.
