Running at a capacity of six megawatts, the plant will produce about 1,200 cubic metres of green hydrogen an hour when it is fully operational. The first step of this project is to test if the technology is viable for commercial use – the electrolyser is set to begin full operations in spring 2019. ‘The steel production process applied in Linz uses loads of coal for steel production, (so there are) a lot of carbon dioxide emissions.’ ‘Steel production is one of the industries which are dominating the carbon dioxide emissions in the world,’ said Scheffer. The goal of this project is not just to produce green hydrogen from renewable energy, but to see if it can in turn be used to produce steel with a lower carbon footprint, dubbed green steel. Scheffer is helping to create a source of green hydrogen for use at a steel plant in Linz, Austria, as part of a project called H2FUTURE. Green hydrogen produced with this electrolysis method, however, is a much cleaner alternative. Currently, about 96 percent of global hydrogen is produced by reforming methane, which produces carbon dioxide as a waste product. The main problem so far has been how to make hydrogen in large quantities cleanly. If this is, in turn, used to provide a clean source of fuel for industry or to balance the electricity grid, it could help alter the future of the planet.

The technology is green hydrogen – using an electric current to convert water into oxygen and hydrogen – and if this is powered with renewable energy then it produces no carbon emissions. ‘You don’t need fossil energies in a future world. 'Hydrogen and fuels derived (from it) is capable of reducing the carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels in the very, very long term, down to zero,’ said Klaus Scheffer, project manager at Siemens.

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