Hydrogen may help wean telecoms off emissions-intensive power for remote infrastructure
08/09/2021 06:15
By Aaron Sheldrick
TOKYO, Sept 8(Reuters) - As the world rushes to cut carbon
emissions, hydrogen fuel cells may offer global telecoms an
environmentally friendly solution to power energy-hungry remote
networks, experts say.
Telecoms run vast arrays of relay stations, data centres and
other infrastructure that need reliable, constant power.
Hydrogen fuel cells, invented in the 1800s and used in U.S. and
Russian space programmes, can replace noisy, polluting diesel
generators that sometimes run 24 hours a day, their proponents
say.
The cells are quiet, have few moving parts and only emit
water. With the UN in August sounding "code red for humanity"
over global warming, such power sources are attractive for a
sector that accounts for 3% of global energy consumption.
"They are a great concept and I think that diesel generators
are on their way out," said Uwe Lambrette, a partner at
consultancy Oliver Wyman, who focuses on telecommunications.
Emissions from powering networks and IT make up nearly a
third of the carbon footprint of telecom companies, Lambrette
said, based on a survey of 19 global operators.
Telecoms need generators that can quickly power up during
electricity outages, and in remote locations they are often the
sole power supply. Solar and wind, which do not always provide
stable power levels, are not workable, experts say.
Fuel cells strip electrons from hydrogen using a catalyst,
combining the resulting gas with oxygen. This produces
electricity, heat and water.
But the technology still has barriers to overcome. The fuel
is difficult to store and little infrastructure is in place for
transporting it long distances from where it is produced. The
cost of hydrogen is also high: roughly 10 times as much as
diesel in some markets.
In Japan, hydrogen enjoys strong government support,
including subsidies for technology and infrastructure.
Hydrogen-fuelled buses and cars are increasingly common and
Toyota is building a prototype city powered by the gas near Mt.
Fuji. Many companies see an opportunity.
"In Japan, fuel cells are usually used as a combined heat
and power source or for transport," said Mike Benner, a
Tokyo-based consultant on electricity grids and power systems,
who has also worked in Japan's mobile phone industry.
Benner said that "there are lots of reasons why hydrogen has
not been a backup power application," including that the fuel is
"notoriously difficult to store."
GenCell GNCL.TA , a small Israeli company that went public
last year, is working with one of Japan's major telecoms
operators to test its G5 fuel cell unit, CEO Rami Reshef told
Reuters. The company's shareholders include Japan's TDK Corp
6762.T .
Reshef declined to identify the Japanese company. It
announced in July that Germany's Deutsche Telekom is also
testing its fuel cells, and the G5 is in commercial use in 14
countries, including the U.S. and Japan, Reshef said.
Panasonic 6752.T said it was working on fuel-cell projects
but declined to provide details.
"Our pure hydrogen fuel-cell generators are still at the
testing stage, not only for the telecoms sector but also for
other industries," a Panasonic spokesperson said.
Hitachi 6501.T has considered hydrogen fuel cells as
backup power units for data centres but is not adopting them
because of "difficulty in securing and storing hydrogen fuel in
a stable manner" and not being able "to sufficiently confirm
(their) safety," a spokesperson said.
Other companies such as Mitsubishi Heavy Industries 7011.T
and Toshiba 6502.T either declined to comment or did not
respond to multiple inquiries.
Reshef said backup power from the G5 in Japan would cost
about $0.83 per kilowatt hour (kWh) compared with $1.22/kWh for
diesel generators, a calculation Benner said "seems reasonable".
"There's no doubt fuel cells can work," said Tomas Kåberger,
affiliate professor at Chalmers University of Technology.
"But where does the hydrogen come from? If transported, it would
likely increase costs even compared to diesel."
In Japan, hydrogen gas is usually produced by refineries and
chemical makers as a byproduct or through steam or gas reforming
processes and is transported in high-pressure tanks.
Hydrogen has an energy density nearly three times that of
diesel but costs about 1,100 yen ($10.00) per kilogram in Japan,
while the fossil fuel costs an average of 133 yen a litre, or
roughly 1 kilogram, for consumers.
To produce the same amount of energy for the same cost, the
price of hydrogen would have to fall to roughly twice that of
diesel, according to U.S. government data.
Most hydrogen comes from fossil fuels and is called brown or
blue hydrogen because it is not emissions-free. But more
companies are investing in electrolysers powered by renewables
to produce "green" hydrogen. urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL4N2L73LL
The United States aims to reduce the cost of green hydrogen
to $1 per kilogram by 2030, while $150 billion in projects for
producing the fuel were announced globally in 2020, compared
with none five years earlier. urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL2N2NP1LG urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL4N2II1O2
In Japan, Softbank 9434.T estimates more than half of its
700,000 tonnes of carbon emissions in the year through March
2020 came from its 230,000 base stations. Softbank has 1,000
diesel generators and is not testing or using hydrogen fuel
cells.
The other two main telecoms in Japan, KDDI 9433.T and NTT
DoCoMo, did not respond to written requests for comment.
The three operators are building nearly 70,000 new base
stations to handle the ever higher loads of data on mobile
networks. More than 20,000 of those need continuous, reliable
backup power, according to GenCell.
($1 = 109.9900 yen)
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GRAPHIC: Clean hydrogen boom https://tmsnrt.rs/388lNiO
GRAHIC: Hydrogen fuel production https://tmsnrt.rs/3vdpygX
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(Reporting by Aaron Sheldrick. Editing by Gerry Doyle)
((aaron.sheldrick@thomsonreuters.com; 81-80-2677-4134;))