Analysis of the potential of the use of green hydrogen to reduce carbon emissions in Colombia

Abstract

Green hydrogen is a promising versatile alternative for the future of energy as it is a vector that facilitates the storage of energy from intermittent renewable sources such as solar or wind and provides its clean energy in industries that are difficult to decarbonize, the purpose of which is to progressively reduce the dependence on fossil fuels and mitigate global warming. This article presents an analysis of the contribution of green hydrogen (H2) to reduce emissions with reference to one year for 4 sectors with applicability in Colombia associated with: blending in the natural gas network, use in transportation, treatment of crude oil in refineries and electricity generation for non-interconnected areas (NIZ). Based on an alkaline and PEM electrolyzer model with similar powers, the green hydrogen production capacity is determined based on the calculation of the mass and energy balance and 10 MW of electrolysis capacity. Hence, when considering the consumption of fossil fuel for each sector, the supply of green hydrogen was evaluated in which a percentage of supply or replacement is evidenced with approximate values to 1% with respect to the total fossil fuel demanded in the country and the emission reduction leveraged with the use of H2 was estimated in each sector under the carbon dioxide emissions quantification methodology, in which reductions between 3.000 and 37.000 tons of CO2 were identified depending on the sector.