Stephen 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?
Stephen Livermore (SL): I work for LIFTE H2, a hydrogen product and project development company. As hydrogen is progressively used in hard-to-abate sectors there is a need to develop larger, bankable projects. LIFTE H2 develops products and supporting ecosystems to realise these projects. LIFTE H2 is based in the US (Boston) and Berlin, with team members around the globe. I am part of a team based in the UK.
I became interested in hydrogen around 6 years ago when I worked for an engineering consultancy. Initially, a lot of my work focused on providing engineering analysis to the UK government to support their hydrogen policy but as the interest and activity in hydrogen increased, I also worked on technical and commercial feasibility studies for hydrogen projects.
I sit on the IMechE’s Energy, Environment and Sustainability Group (EESG) that has broad interests in the decarbonisation of the energy system including hydrogen.
Q: What, in your experience, has been the biggest roadblock for utilising hydrogen in your sector?
SL: At LIFTE H2, we focus on hard-to-abate sectors, including transportation and industrial applications of hydrogen. In these sectors (and indeed other applications for hydrogen) we need scalable, bankable projects. On the engineering side where I focus, I would say one of the biggest roadblocks is the infrastructure required to fill the gap between hydrogen production and demand.
Historically hydrogen has been produced (mostly from natural gas) at the same location as it is used. However, this is changing. Green hydrogen production from renewables may be sited some distance away from where it is used, and an increase in the applications of hydrogen for industry, transport and power will mean that it will need to be safely and cost-effectively transported and stored.
New individual products are being developed to support this, but these products need to work together. This is the mortar between the bricks, that too often gets forgotten about as industries develop. Currently, the inability to integrate products creates availability problems (equipment downtime), reductions in performance when there are no agreed protocols (methods of interfacing between products) and ultimately this drives up project cost. You can introduce new individual technologies into projects but new technologies often come at a premium and unless they have been designed to work with the other parts of the system, the immediate effect will probably just be to increase the overall project cost. There needs to be more emphasis on the whole eco-system and certainly that is our focus at LIFTE H2. We are developing new products to safely and cheaply export and distribute hydrogen but are also doing a lot of work making sure these and other products can work together to develop scalable hydrogen projects.
Q: What key topics are you excited to discuss at this year's conference?
SL: Although in my role I am focusing on hydrogen infrastructure, I also need to understand the latest developments in production and end-use applications. On the production side, I think solid oxide electrolysis is very exciting as it could provide a step-change in efficiency. However, I would like to learn more about their roadmap for demonstrating that the technology is fit for purpose and can be scaled up.
I am also interested to hear how hydrogen projects are scaling up in size and any learnings from experience from recent projects that can assist the whole industry development.
Q: Regarding the utilisation of hydrogen, what would you say are the technologies or applications to watch for the future?
SL: The use of hydrogen in transport is very interesting and definitely one to watch. There is a lot of uncertainty around the role of hydrogen compared to batteries for transport applications. Personally, I don’t think hydrogen is the right solution for cars or even light commercial but I think it can provide very useful range extension for heavy-duty transport. Other transport applications like aviation and shipping are interesting for hydrogen too, even if they use synthetic fuels that use hydrogen as a feedstock.
Q: Who else are you most interested in hearing from on the programme?
SL: Through my involvement with the EESG, I am very interested in the broader energy system challenges and a very interesting application for hydrogen is its role in balancing seasonal mismatches in electrical supply and demand. We are so reliant on natural gas at the moment – for our heating and also for balancing the electricity system. As renewables become a greater part of the energy mix, we will need more and more large-scale energy storage. If we move towards electric heating (via heat pumps), the need for seasonal electrical storage will become even more important. There are lots of potential options for long-duration storage. I am interested in hearing about hydrogen’s role in long-term energy storage and how the thinking has progressed on this issue.
Q: Why is it important for engineers to join this conference?
SL: There is no shortage of conferences to attend on hydrogen at the moment. The IMechE’s conference is different from many of the others in that it focuses on the engineering challenges - at a level that works for those that are both heavily engaged in hydrogen and also those that are new to it.
For those working in hydrogen, it will allow them to hear about other parts of the hydrogen value-chain that they are not so familiar with. For those not working in hydrogen it will provide a useful and interesting appraisal of how hydrogen is starting to affect the energy system.
All engineers need to know at least the basics of hydrogen and its role in decarbonising hard-to-abate sectors and this conference is a great 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.