Electrification industry promising

Will electrification of industry deliver on its promise? The Economist asks this question this week. There is hope for the future, according to the British magazine. After all, electricity is a versatile way to provide more and more things with energy and there are many technologies that can generate electricity without emitting greenhouse gases. But there are also obstacles: there is shortage on our electricity grid and a lack of storage to compensate for the fluctuating supply. Yet these obstacles are becoming increasingly less of a deterrent to investors: last year the world spent more on electricity storage than on building nuclear power plants.

The comparison between storing sustainably generated electricity and building nuclear power stations may seem far-fetched, according to Jan Vos , chairman of NWEA, but shows a global change. 'The enormous investments in electricity storage will only increase further in the coming years.' Vos emphasizes that within ten years we will be generating more sustainable electricity in the Netherlands than we currently need. 'We can then store the remainder – the overproduction – or convert it into hydrogen, for example.'

Hydrogen
The assumption that hydrogen will be of great importance in our future energy system is under fire, according to The Economist . Innovative ways are increasingly being found to convert electricity into usable forms of heat, even at high temperatures. Vos: 'While until recently the industry was very interested in converting existing combustion processes into hydrogen-based production, the electrification of production processes increasingly technically feasible and economically viable'.

The additional costs of direct electrification are recouped by avoiding efficiency losses of approximately 40-60 percent and not having to build electrolysers. Vos does point out that not everything can be done electrically: Hard-to-abate processes will of course continue to exist, so electrification will go hand in hand with CCS and the switch to hydrogen. The market can determine exactly where the balance will lie with a well-functioning European Emission Trading System (ETS) in combination with the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM).'