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Iain discusses his role and involvement with regards to the hydrogen economy, industry challenges, what he is looking forward to at the event and why it is important for engineers to attend.
Q: Please could you briefly explain your role, involvement, and experience with regards to the hydrogen economy and this conference?
Iain Scott (IS): I am the Business Development Manager at Veolia tasked with identifying and developing Veolia’s business strategy in relation the offshore energy transition. Currently within our offshore business unit we derive almost 100% of our revenue from oil and gas activities, but increasingly we see a need for what we do in the emerging hydrogen sector, particularly with regards to the large scale integration of process technology offshore, which is already at the core of what we do as a business today.
Q: What, in your experience, has been the biggest roadblock for utilising hydrogen in your sector?
IS: Our sector (i.e. the upstream oil & gas service sector) is in many ways leading the charge towards a net-zero economy. For many companies like ours, currently servicing oil and gas clients, the energy transition is ultimately an existential issue. Recent years have definitely seen an increase in the pace towards net-zero, and attitudes within the sector have shifted from denial toward thinking of energy transition as an opportunity. The will and motivation is there, so perhaps the biggest road blocks that remain are more logistical and technical in nature. They relate to the real challenges of scaling-up hydrogen from its current kilowatt scale to the necessary gigawatt scale. This is no small challenge and requires investment and innovation at all levels of the value chain to come together all at once.
Q: What key topics are you excited to discuss at this year's conference?
IS: We are focused on the integration of process technology offshore, with a particular focus on modular water treatment plants. A major engineering challenge relating to hydrogen production relates to waste heat, as much 20% of the power input may be lost as heat, and on top of that there is a power requirement for the remaining balance of plant. Water desalination itself can be quite a power intensive process. We have developed a solution which makes use of the waste heat from the electrolysis process to power the desalination process which in turn provides the water feedstock for electrolysis.
Q: Regarding the utilisation of hydrogen, what would you say are the technologies or applications to watch for the future?
IS: The electrolyser market is diverse and whether you are using PEM, alkaline, solid oxide or some other novel technology the same issue remains with regards to the scalability. Most solutions currently are looking at building blocks of <1MW and we have seen some 5MW electrolyser stacks planned. I think that to get to the gigawatt scale that we are targeting we will need to be smarter about auxiliary equipment and balance of plant. Building a 1GW plant can’t mean pulling together 1000 x 1MW units. I don’t know, but I’m interested to find out where the upper limits are?
Q: Who else are you most interested in hearing from on the programme?
IS: I’m keen to engage with electrolyser manufacturers and other technology providers to understand better how we might integrate their solutions into ours. The challenge of a hydrogen roll-out will require a variety of different approaches and I’m keen to align with technology providers from across the industry.
Q: Why is it important for engineers to join this conference?
IS: It is clear that to solve these challenges, we cannot operate in a vacuum. It is important to learn and share with our peers to gain perspective and appreciate the state of the art. If we are serious about solving these problem we need to collaborate across sectors and disciplines at an accelerated pace. A conference which promises to address engineering challenges in the hydrogen economy is a good place to start.
The Engineering Challenges in the Hydrogen Economy 2023 conference will be taking place on 14-15 March 2023 in London.
Join this conference to:
- Hear case studies from mature projects addressing infrastructure challenges for production, storage and distribution
- Identify bottlenecks and barriers in moving to a hydrogen economy
- Develop your understanding of the utilisation across different engineering sectors including rail, heavy-duty, aerospace, power generation, marine and more
- Hear from leading experts in the field and explore opportunities to collaborate on new projects
- Gain insight into gaps in the market and requirements for new technology
- Take away lessons learned from other innovative companies to ensure optimal development strategies
- Understand how your existing equipment or products can be deployed in the new hydrogen economy
To book your place, please visit the event website.