Research on hydrogen to replace coke and gasoline

The Ministry of Industry and Trade is seeking comments on the draft Strategy on hydrogen energy production to 2030, with a vision to 2050.

According to the Ministry of Industry and Trade, currently, hydrogen energy is not used for energy purposes, but is mainly used as a non-energy raw material in the oil refining, fertilizer, and chemical industries.

Therefore, hydrogen energy has not played a role in the national energy supply and demand balance. According to the orientations on the use of hydrogen energy, hydrogen plays an important role in decarbonization in the metallurgical industry, chemical raw materials (fertilizers), oil refining, transportation (fuel cells, hydrogen, ammonia, synthetic fuels, ...).

“With the use of hydrogen energy, coke and gasoline can be replaced to reduce CO2 emissions,” the draft assessment said.

Hydrogen is considered a priority energy source for development to replace fossil fuels, and is expected to account for a significant proportion of Vietnam's energy structure in the future.

The hydrogen energy production strategy will guide the development of the entire hydrogen energy value chain including hydrogen energy production; hydrogen energy use; hydrogen transportation, storage and distribution.

Hydrogen is a virtually inexhaustible clean energy.

In Vietnam, hydrogen is produced mainly from the petrochemical refining and fertilizer production processes to serve the operations of these industries to remove sulfur and impurities N, O, metals... from raw materials or semi-finished products, catalyze the reduction of active metal oxides, or saturate unsaturated compounds (hydrogenation).

Vietnam's hydrogen demand, through the hydrogen demand of the Vietnam Oil and Gas Group (PVN) in 2020 to supply nitrogen fertilizer plants, is about 316,000 tons of hydrogen; Dung Quat and Nghi Son refineries consume 39,000 tons and 139,000 tons/year, respectively. Total hydrogen demand is expected to increase to about 4,000 KTA by 2050.

According to the draft, hydrogen is not currently used for energy purposes but is mainly produced from fossil fuels. In the future, hydrogen needs to continue to be produced from fossil fuels with carbon capture and renewable energy sources (wind, solar, etc.) through water electrolysis processes.

Some other green hydrogen production projects have been proposed such as: Thang Long Wind 2 (TLW2) investment project to produce hydrogen from seawater electrolysis for export at the Thang Long offshore wind power project area (Ke Ga cape, Binh Thuan province) with a scale of 2,000 MW, total investment of about 5 billion USD, expected implementation time from 2022 to 2030.

The Tra Vinh Green Hydrogen Gas Production Plant Project in Dong Hai Commune, Duyen Hai District, Tra Vinh Province uses alkaline electrolysis technology to serve domestic demand and export to Japan, Korea, Singapore and Europe. The project started construction in March 2023.

Ben Tre Green Hydrogen Production Plant Project - TGS Green Hydro Co., Ltd. (member of The Green Solutions Group) is the investor.

Some other corporations are also starting to have initial discussions in researching and investing in Hydrogen projects such as TTVN Group and SK Group.

Luong Bang

Green hydrogen industry contributes to accelerating the goal of zero carbon emissions . The green hydrogen industry plays an important role in the energy transition, helping the world as well as Vietnam achieve the goal of zero carbon emissions (Net Zero) by 2050.

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