INTERVIEW - The certainty of repeated design can reduce H2 project development and delivery times

Early in 2022, Australian engineering group Worley, Zurich-based company ABB and US tech group IBM announced a partnership that seeks to reduce the complexity of hydrogen projects and contribute to wider market adoption. After the World Hydrogen Congress, we spoke with Dr Hans Dieter Hermes, Vice President of Clean Hydrogen at Worley, about the trio's work and the future of hydrogen projects.

At the World Hydrogen Congress you said Worley regard 100 MW as a future “standard building block” for hydrogen projects. Currently, a plant of this size is quite big. Apart from the renewable energy resource, export potential or significant local demand, what other factors would be key for determining if such a project would be feasible? Is water depletion something you take into account in your project studies?

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What we see today is that the most advanced projects, which have reached final investment decisions (FIDs) are 200 MW in size. Hence, looking to the upcoming months and years, a 100 MW block will not be big at all, as the current projects under development globally are much larger than this. Therefore, our building block is suited to constructing a larger overall project capacity, from today’s knowledge.

In general, water electrolysis requires a significant amount of high-purity water. For a 100 MW size, the amount of water and depletion is not really an issue. For large and mega projects, water desalination is the solution. But knowing that purified water supplies contribute only a small amount of the overall costs of a hydrogen asset, this is not a threat, but an opportunity to produce excess water and then supply communities with fresh water. Something that is particularly valuable in dry regions.

The Worley/IBM/ABB partnership aims to reduce the complexity of hydrogen projects, and “build green hydrogen assets more quickly, cheaply, and safely, and operate them more efficiently.” Do you have some early estimates showing how much time and money a project initiator can save?

Our partnership with ABB and IBM and our common development over the last two years have led to the creation of our Digital Platform. This connects the digital asset with its operation and the broader enterprise. It is early days for the Platform, but initial indications suggest significant savings in operating costs will be achieved. The Platform will also allow enterprise-level challenges to be resolved in an extremely efficient manner. For example, the certification of green products utilising a blockchain solution and seamless ESG reporting.

Do you think there will be room for a fourth partner at some stage?

The Digital Platform we have created forms the basis for future application development to resolve challenges and create value in this complex environment. The core Platform is proprietary to Worley, ABB and IBM. However, it is possible that future applications which reside on the Platform will be developed with third parties where they have specific expertise or solutions, as well as potentially with customers.

We believe that collaboration is essential in helping the industry achieve the energy transition goals for which we are all striving.

What are the industries that most of your potential clients come from?

We are 51,000 people across 49 countries working in the energy, chemicals and resources sectors. Using this global reach, we have implemented more than 3,600 energy transition projects, and more than 250 hydrogen projects worldwide. These activities are as broad as our customer base, and we are proud to be able to work with the largest energy companies, industry corporates - such as large chemical producers - and the mining industry.

Where do you see the biggest opportunity today for standardising hydrogen assets and the Digital Platform? What about in 10 or 20 years? How do you see this evolving?

The necessary ambitions to decarbonise our industry, our mobility, and our daily life, to have a chance to meet net zero, do seem overwhelming. We have partnered with Princeton’s Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment on two papers that consider how we need to reinvent the way we deliver energy infrastructure if we are to reach net zero by 2050.

One of the five shifts needed to overhaul how we plan, develop, procure, and build the infrastructure needed at the pace and scale required is standardisation. Designing and building in parallel and relying on the certainty of repeated design to reduce development and delivery times.

When you look at the corresponding volumes of hydrogen required in a low-carbon world, they are immense. Moreover, the projects which need to be developed are much larger in size compared to what we already know from industries such as renewable energy, and additionally need to be implemented faster than ever.

In this situation, our standardised asset solutions – supported by the Digital Platform – are the mechanism that helps to speed up development and reduce the costs of complex hydrogen projects.

In the near future, we see an even higher degree of modularisation which will affect the surrounding infrastructure and entire supply chain for large, cost-efficient, and safe low-carbon hydrogen production and supply. We also believe that digitally enabled solutions are essential to reduce cost and remove complexity in this new era. This will be even more important as assets become larger and increasingly integrated. Providing these asset solutions and digital platforms are part of our contributions to delivering a more sustainable world.