Both hydrogen and battery technologies are expected to operate in the power sector, but in different areas, says independent risk management and assurance firm DNV.

Hydrogen is expected to play a role as a form of dispatchable generation, which allows for the seasonal storage or production of energy – producing hydrogen in seasons with excess electricity generation from renewables, to then converting it back to electricity during periods with reduced wind and solar availability.

Batteries are expected to dominate in providing short term energy storage solutions, improving grid stability and balancing supply and demand within the daily cycles of renewable electricity generation and changing demand.

In this sense the two technologies complement each other in helping to ensure a secure supply of electricity and to enable the decarbonisation of the electricity grid, the DNV report states.

The driving force in this relationship is the cost of storage relative to the cost of power production. Hydrogen has the advantage of relatively cheap storage in terms of the equipment used for each kilowatt hour stored, and storage can be scaled up significantly to increase the discharge time for a given discharge rate.

In a utility scale battery storage application, the battery modules themselves make up nearly 50% of the cost, and therefore increasing the capacity has a large capital expenditure impact.

Hydrogen is expected to play a large role in decarbonising international shipping, however not in a pure form but as ammonia and e-methanol. Both ammonia and e-methanol are expected to be cheaper to produce, store and transport than other synthetic fuels and have a higher density by volume than hydrogen. Significant development is needed before either fuel can be in widespread use, leaving some uncertainty in the final energy mix of the sector.

The use of hydrogen in a fuel cell or in an internal combustion engine is feasible and commercial vehicles are both available and in development today. Fuel cell electric vehicles (which are generally platinum based) uptake is expected to be concentrated in high payload heavy goods vehicles, some coaches and off-road vehicles, along with some fleet vehicles where high utilisation and rapid refuelling is required.

Hydrogen vehicles may take a significant market share of the heavy-duty sectors, such as long-distance high payload heavy good vehicles and coach services where battery technology is unable to feasibly meet the performance requirements. In addition to higher energy capacity, hydrogen vehicles can be refuelled within minutes, making them preferable for applications requiring high utilisation and fast turnaround times, for instance ambulance services.

In many applications, greater long-term potential is seen in fuel cell vehicles rather than hydrogen internal combustion engine vehicles, but with fuel cell costs currently high. As a result, sectors including construction and agricultural are, in the near-term, investing in hydrogen internal combustion engine vehicles. Hybrid solutions utilising fuel cell as range extenders for battery electric vehicles may be the preferred solution in specific applications, however typically the increased cost and minimal refuelling infrastructure is expected to limit the market share for hybrid vehicles, the report states.

Key countries for the supply of fuel cell components include the US, Germany, and Japan. Fuel cells can be disassembled, and the materials recycled. Fuel cell recycling is mainly focused on the recovery of the expensive precious metal catalysts. In the UK, there is currently no established processes for recovering these high value materials, however it is an emerging area. Canadian company Ballard Power Systems state they can typically reclaim more than 95% of the precious metals and that most of the remaining components in a fuel cell stack can be recycled using ordinary recycling processes. Similarly, to the recycling of battery cells, incr...