In their recent podcast (Jan-20), DNV GL interview the President and CEO (Asia Pacific) of renewable energy company Vestas. This is what I took away, which reinforces our approach with Gas2Wire…
The transition is happening. Renewables have already disrupted the market in Europe, this now needs to happen in Asia. Now the cheapest cost of new energy (wind and solar), the success of the past 10 years needs to be scaled from the current 5-10% of the world’s supply mix to 50-80%.
To have a large portion of power from these sources in a grid system and avoid problems, there are already very sophisticated ways to handle this. The general public are now on side. The ‘polluter pays’ approach needs to be adopted globally, to help the transition happen at the rate required.
As well as scaling up, renewables now need to go beyond electricity – into heating and transport (amongst others) to change the ways those industries are producing carbon. It took 10 years for the cost of wind and solar to come down, it could be a similar timeframe for green hydrogen, which could become the new LNG in a period of 10-20 years.
To deliver this requires mass scaling, into areas with low population and massive renewable potential. Renewable energy can be converted to hydrogen through electrolysis (green hydrogen) and into ammonia (gas-to-liquid) for effective and safe transportation.
This is how some of those key points support our gas2wire….cleaner2greener™ initiative:
- Scaling up the share of renewables in the global supply mix to 50-80% will require significant infrastructure investment. Unlike traditional projects, Gas2Wire uses cable infrastructure instead of pipelines, which can help support and allow this expansion to happen more rapidly.
- Current and future supplies will require fossil fuels as part of the equation, which should be sourced and used responsibly and efficiently to minimise associated emissions. Gas2Wire is one of, if not the, most energy efficient / least carbon intensive means of generating electricity from a fossil fuel. No transport, storage, venting, flaring, leakage, shrinkage or otherwise is involved.
- There are ways to manage grids in very sophisticated ways, so that fossil fuels can play a smaller role. Unlike some traditional projects, rather than hinder renewables, Gas2Wire has the flexibility to provide baseload and peaking services, only when they cannot meet demand.
- Hydrogen could be the new LNG in 10-20 years. Minimising gas emissions / emissions from gas means using gas at its source. Therefore, we use gas to generate electricity at the source. Once converted, there are no further emission sources. We do not promote the generation of grey or blue hydrogen, which is an inefficient use/store of its energy.
- Polluters pay idea to be adopted globally. Carbon pricing is an area in which Governments around the world need to act, quickly. This will provide stimulus and the economic justification required to kick-start the development and commercial use of technologies including CCS. Gas2Wire is ideally placed to capture emissions from power generation and reinject them back into the source reservoir.
- Change the way industries are producing carbon. Gas2Wire is one way, we are making it happen.