Project Summary

Due to high energy requirements, the cost of producing green hydrogen throughcommercially available technology remains three times higher than the productionof grey hydrogen. Additionally, current green hydrogen production technologystruggles with ramping up, and down, when renewables are intermittent for risk ofcreating dangerous hydrogen and oxygen mixtures.

The ALCHEM (Advanced Low Carbon Hydrogen and Energy Management)project addresses both problems through its innovative biomass electrolysistechnology, which uses liquid waste biomass to produce green hydrogen andgreen chemicals with no oxygen, using 75% less energy than conventional waterelectrolysis.

Innovation Justification

The ALCHEM project showcases the commercial feasibility of biomasselectrolysis, a novel technology that replaces the oxidation side of an electrolysisreaction with liquid biomass instead of water. This process, utilising feedstock fromvarious sources like brewery waste and agricultural residue, boasts advantagessuch as the absence of oxygen production, enabling the use of alkalineelectrolysers powered directly by intermittent renewable electricity withoutconcerns of dangerous oxygen-hydrogen crossovers. Fundamentally, this reactionrequires up to 75% less energy than traditional water electrolysis.
The technology is innovative compared with the state-of-the-art competing hydrogen production technologies because it is much more efficient and flexiblewhilst still producing zero carbon emissions. Current water electrolysers require around 55kWh of electricity to produce 1kg of hydrogen. While this can be furtherreduced, there is a fundamental minimum limit of 39kWh/kgH2. Biomasselectrolysis has a much lower fundamental minimum limit down to 10kWh/kgH2.The project is targeting a total system efficiency of 25kWh/kgH2.

project technology builds on the University of Cambridge postdoctoralresearch of the technical lead from Ki Hydrogen (https://ki-hydrogen.com/).

Current level: Estimated level at end of Discovery phase
IRL 1:2
CRL 1:4
TRL 3:3
The project is proposed to be a 3MW pilot plant to produce commercial-scalehydrogen. This is aligned with the Innovation Challenge of 'enabling power-to-gas(P2G) to provide system flexibility and energy network optimisation' because it willconvert biomass waste and renewable electricity into green hydrogen with energyefficiency and flexibility beyond state-of-the-art.
The project is a high-risk venture based on innovative technology that will notqualify for debt-financing. Ki Hydrogen is solely focused on commercialisingbiomass electrolysis and will not have revenue streams to finance the project untilit is operational to become business as usual.
In the UK, current baseload electricity prices are at ~£80/MWh with greenhydrogen costing £5/kg. The industry counterfactual of achieving £1.5/kg greenhydrogen with current technologies is relying on electricity prices to fall to £10-20/MWh. Biomass electrolysis can achieve £1.5/kg with electricity prices of£80/MWh.
Alternative waste-to-hydrogen technologies include gasification/pyrolysis andmicrobial electrolysis. These technologies first produce a syngas which needs tothen be separated, treated, and requires a separate carbon capture module. Eachstep brings complexity, efficiency losses, and added capital equipment costs. Biomass electrolysis converts waste to pure hydrogen in one step, wherehydrogen is the only gaseous product.

Impacts and Benefits

Financial -- cost savings per annum on energy bills for consumers
The UK aims to have at least 5GW of electrolytic hydrogen capacity by 2030. Thatconverts to approximately 0.4Mt of green hydrogen production per year. The business-as-usual counterfactual is water electrolysis to produce all that green hydrogen, with an estimated levelised cost of production of £5/kg2. That equatesto a direct cost to the network and its consumers of £2 billion every year to meetthis demand.
Through biomass electrolysis, the levelised cost drops drastically to £1.5/kg,meaning it would only cost £600 million every year to produce the same amount ofhydrogen. This is a direct saving of £1.4 billion every year to the network and itsconsumers while meeting its net zero targets enabled by green hydrogen.
In turn, this cost reduction, driven by a reduction in energy usage, will translate to2.5GW of reduced need for upstream electricity grid infrastructure to still meet theUK electrolytic hydrogen target by 2030.
Environmental -- carbon reduction -- direct CO2 savings per annum
14.5kg of CO2e emissions are directly emitted for every 1kg of hydrogen producedusing today's preferred means of industrial hydrogen production, steam methanereforming technology, which represents essentially all the UK's domestic hydrogen production.
In comparison, the project technology will have 0.5kg of CO2e per 1kg of greenhydrogen produced, mainly associated with the production and transportation ofthe biomass feedstock. Not only does this meet the UK's Low Carbon HydrogenStandard, but also meets the more stringent Green Hydrogen Standard as definedby the Green Hydrogen Organisation. This means that biomass electrolysis is alsocompetitive with water electrolysis which is predicted to emit 0.4-0.8kg of CO2eper 1kg of green hydrogen produced.
Considering the UK currently produces around 0.7Mt of grey hydrogen, convertingit all to biomass electrolysis would directly mitigate 10Mt of CO2e emissions everyyear.
Revenues - creation of new revenue streams
Hydrogen is the only gaseous product of biomass electrolysis. All the carbon staysin liquid form and breaks down into valuable chemical co-products such as aceticand formic acid. These are chemical commodities that can be sold as anadditional revenue stream. Today, these chemicals are derived from fossil fuels.Since the carbon is biogenic, the technology would be making "green" versions ofthese chemicals at cost parity.