Funding: Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación
Duration: 2021-2025
Description: The GH2T project aims to accelerate green hydrogen technology deployment by integrating renewable hydrogen production into existing oil refineries. While hydrogen shows promise for future energy systems, progress has been limited except in transportation and small-scale applications. However, refineries already have extensive hydrogen infrastructure for production, storage, and usage, making them ideal “hydrogen clusters” for green technology integration.
The project’s core strategy involves leveraging high-emission fossil fuel facilities as technology incubators for renewable hydrogen solutions. This synergistic approach offers a cost-effective pathway to establish green hydrogen networks without requiring entirely new large-scale infrastructure. By utilizing existing refinery infrastructure, the project can significantly reduce implementation time and costs while attracting energy industry investors.
To prevent technological lock-in effects, the project also incorporates bio-oil processing technologies, which complement green hydrogen for decarbonization efforts. This dual approach enhances the overall sustainability and flexibility of the proposed system.
The project’s specific objectives include identifying integration opportunities and challenges, developing conceptual designs for two refinery case studies, conducting sustainability assessments, contributing to hydrogen economy policy development, creating realistic exploitation roadmaps, and maximizing contributions to sustainable development across economic, social, and environmental dimensions.
The work plan employs specialized software for energy systems analysis, process integration, life cycle modeling, geographical information management, and cost estimation, alongside advanced sustainability assessment methodologies.
GH2T’s anticipated impact centers on providing large-scale hydrogen storage at reduced costs while facilitating production and usage infrastructure development.
Beyond technological advances, the project expects to contribute to regulatory frameworks, particularly in multi-use underground hydrogen storage standards and renewable hydrogen integration in refining sectors.
Researches and related publications:https://prisma.us.es/financiacion/14642