The Edmonton Region Hydrogen Hub, Canada’s first, was launched on 14 April to great expectations.

The Alberta government is hoping blue hydrogen will become an important new industry in the province and the source of substantial new export revenue in coming decades, with the Edmonton hub serving as a blueprint for others. The federal government foresees a number of clean hydrogen hubs developing across the country to help achieve Canada’s goal of net-zero emissions by mid-century.

“Hydrogen has the potential to be not just a key part of the world’s cleaner energy future, but the future of Alberta’s dynamic energy industry” Nally, associate minister of natural gas and electricity

“Hydrogen has the potential to be not just a key part of the world’s cleaner energy future, but the future of Alberta’s dynamic energy industry,” says Dale Nally, the province’s associate minister of natural gas and electricity.  “The launch of the Edmonton Region Hydrogen Hub is a critical step towards building that future by establishing the local connections which will pave the way for provincial, national, and international networks in the years to come.”

The impetus for each hub is expected to differ, but in the case of the Edmonton hydrogen hub a wide alliance of government, academic, indigenous, NGO and economic development leaders are driving it forward. This is now being supported by C$2.25mn ($1.8mn) of funding over two years from three levels of government: C$1.2mn from the Fed’s Western Economic Diversification Canada; C$450,000 from the Alberta government via Emissions Reduction Alberta; and C$600,000 from Alberta’s Industrial Heartland Association, which is funded by several counties and municipalities.

With support from The Transition Accelerator, a pan-Canadian not-for-profit organisation set up two years ago to support the development of a hydrogen economy, planning is underway for more than 25 potential projects in the Edmonton area related to the production, transportation and consumption of blue hydrogen. Potential markets for the hydrogen include heavy industry and heavy transportation, municipal and commercial vehicle fleets, and residential and commercial space heating.

It has been estimated that Canada’s clean hydrogen market alone could reach C$50-100bn annually by 2050.

Go big or go home

A number of commentators have expressed concern about the relatively small amount of funding committed to developing the Edmonton hub; especially given relatively large amounts being committed by potential competitors for clean hydrogen export markets such as Australia, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Even David Layzell, one of the founders of The Transition Accelerator and the organisation’s energy systems architect, warned that developers of hydrogen hubs must “go big or go home” during a webinar hosted by the Canadian Society for Unconventional Resources (CSUR) in late March.

But in an interview with Hydrogen Economist, Layzell says the Edmonton region hub is off to a good start given its many natural advantages for producing blue hydrogen. These include: a massive, low-cost natural gas resource base; an extensive network of fuel and carbon dioxide pipelines; numerous and massive natural underground storage sites for CO₂, some of which provide a revenue stream by enhancing oil production; established regulations and technical expertise; and high gas production, with Alberta producing more than two-thirds of the country’s gas (Canada is the sixth-largest gas producer in the world) and two-thirds of its hydrogen. In Alberta’s Industrial Heartland, 40pc of hydrogen produced is already blue.

“A couple million is not going big, as it will take take billions and billions to build successful hydrogen hubs, but it’s an important start,” Layzell says. “It is the seed money needed to fund the necessary economic and technical assessments to get the hydrogen ball rolling in the Edmonton region over the next two years.”

According to Layzell, officials from Japan, South Korea and California—potentially three huge hydrogen import markets of the future—have all expressed interest in purchasing blue hydrogen from Western Canada as part of their emission-reduction strategies.

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Author: Vincent Lauerman