Green hydrogen: framing your regional project effectively

The hydrogen sector is part of the France 2030 plan, which the President of the Republic outlined in fall 2021 as part of the economic recovery plan. Hydrogen is an energy carrier: once extracted from a local resource, it can be burned or used in a fuel cell to power an electric motor. The advantage is that it has a virtually zero carbon footprint when used. However, this advantage only applies under three conditions: the compound containing it must be carbon-free (such as water) or not of fossil origin; the energy required to extract it must itself be low-carbon or carbon-free; and its uses must be close to the production sites to limit transport. Otherwise, the ecological footprint increases and disqualifies hydrogen as a replacement for the centralized and globalized energy models of the oil economy.

A hydrogen economy can therefore only be envisaged on a small territorial scale. These assumptions needed to be set in stone in a reference document, which is what AFNOR SPEC M58-007, recently published by AFNOR, does. A sort of pre-standard standard, this guide proposes an ecosystemic and territorial approach. "We needed a methodological framework that covers the entire life cycle, from production to use, that sets the scales and emphasizes the concept of a regenerative ecosystem, with local distribution of added value," summarizes Loïc Perrin, scientific director of H2X Ecosystems, a Breton industrial development company that actively contributed to the drafting of the document under the aegis of AFNOR, through its CEO Stéphane Paul.

Electrolysis of water is recommended for production.

The aim is therefore to present project developers, manufacturers, and the local authorities that host them with a set of best practices designed to preserve the ecological advantage of hydrogen throughout the entire chain. Thus, hydrogen production by water electrolysis is favored (using carbon-free electricity, such as surplus wind power), as opposed to production by hydrocarbon reforming. This production will have to take place where the electricity supply is located, in the countryside or by the sea in the case of surplus wind power. This means that it will take place in sparsely populated areas with low energy needs, which rules out mass production. "Rural areas are just as concerned with hydrogen as large cities," concludes Loïc Perrin.

In the same vein, the best practices listed exclude injecting the hydrogen obtained into international gas pipelines for heating purposes, in order to preserve the local nature of the system. And, of course, no hydrogen project can be viable without the recovery of by-products: oxygen, at the outlet of the electrolyzer (for example, for medical use or in wastewater treatment plants) and water, at the outlet of a fuel cell. "The value created must return to the territory that owns the resources," emphasizes Loïc Perrin.