In a bid to promote hydrogen activities and see how it can play a major role in the decarbonisation of hard-to-abate sectors, Kadri Simson, European Commissioner for Energy, recently visited the pilot plant in Luleå.
Read more: HYBRIT produces world’s first hydrogen-reduced sponge iron at pilot scale
Read more: EU draws out plan to increase hydrogen production to replace Russian fossil fuels and gas dependency
HYBRIT is part of a collaboration between SSAB, LKAB, and Vattenfall and is enabling a reduction of carbon emissions in steel manufacturing whilst additionally integrating hydrogen into hard-to-abate sectors.
The visit comes as the EU aims to replace Russian fossil fuel and gas reliance with hydrogen helping to accelerate and generate a new crucial decarbonised energy vector in the region.
Fundamental to the REPowerEU strategy is the production of larger volumes of renewable hydrogen and imports in which to phase out fossil fuels across various industries.
This hydrogen accelerator, according to Hydrogen Europe, must focus on several key pillars to support the economy, including replacing, repurposing, and reinvesting.
HYBRIT last year also produced the “world’s first” hydrogen-reduced sponge iron using fossil-free hydrogen gas to reduce iron ore instead of using coal and coke to remove the oxygen.
Kadri Simson, Energy Commissioner for the European Commission, said, “The HYBRIT pilot plant in Luleå is taking impressive steps towards energy transition and is contributing to a wider economic and industrial revival of Northern Sweden.
“The plant is driving for a completely fossil-free value chain for iron and steel production. The innovative plant will have a role to play in the process towards carbon neutrality.”
Andreas Regnell, Senior Vice-President of Strategic Projects at Vattenfall, said, “We were glad to welcome Commissioner Simson to HYBRIT, and to be able to show a transition in a hard to abate sector under development right now.
“Electrification is a key enabler to system integration, leading to the decarbonisation of many sectors, including the industry. During the visit we discussed that the regulatory framework needs to reward frontrunners, such as HYBRIT.
“Carbon pricing under the EU ETS remains a key policy tool for incentivising investments in fossil-free technologies. Moreover, all available fossil free electricity production is a necessity to be able to scale up production of fossil free hydrogen.”
North American Hydrogen Summit
H2 View is taking its events platform to America’s original clean hydrogen hub of California. Together with the California Fuel Cell Partnership (CaFCP), we will stage our North American Hydrogen Summit in San Francisco on July 14-15.
As our summit theme Building Bridges: Hydrogen hubs and investment suggests, the event will explore the $8bn of funding announced to create at least four regional hydrogen hubs in the US. These hubs will turbo-charge the nation’s progress toward heavy trucking and industrial sectors that run without producing carbon pollution – and they may just provide the path forward to a hydrogen-fuelled future.
With California and Texas vying to be America’s hydrogen capital today, where are the hubs of tomorrow? Further still, what can other states, and countries, learn from California’s success story? And how can we build bridges to a successful flow of international investment?
Full information about this event including attendance and sponsorship packages can be found here.