WHAT TOMORROW’S REFINERY WILL LOOK LIKE

Austrian solar company Fronius is building a prototype of tomorrow’s refinery – not a maze of pipes carrying petroleum fluids and gases from tank to tank, but a plant that makes “green” hydrogen on-site using only solar energy and water.
Hydrogen is establishing itself as a niche fuel in the future’s energy mix, especially in powering trains and vehicle fleets. (“The Emerging Hydrogen Economy,” Trends Journal, 13 April, 2021.)
But conventional hydrogen is made by burning a lot of fuel to break hydrogen out of natural gas.
In contrast, green hydrogen uses renewable energy to pull the gas out of water.
Fronius is piloting a plant that will do that on a commercial scale.
The flat-roofed refinery will be topped by about 5,000 solar panels that will make 1.5 megawatts of electricity a day to power the electrolysis process of cracking water into hydrogen and oxygen.
The plant, operational next spring, is designed to initially produce 100 kilograms of hydrogen a day, which will power 16 of the company’s fuel-cell cars on their daily rounds, amounting to more than 900 miles of travel. The technology can be scaled to produce much larger volumes.
The company sees its refineries eventually making fuel to stock hydrogen “gas stations” where fuel-cell vehicles can stop to top their tanks in the course of a day.
Fronius also is building a “hydrogen competence center” to develop improved hydrogen refining processes.
TRENDPOST: Hydrogen is having its moment of fame. The hype will subside, but hydrogen will firmly establish itself as a key fuel in niche markets in a post-oil world.

Fronius’s prototype hydrogen “gas station.”

Credit: SAN Group