Kawasaki Heavy Industries (KHI) and McDermott-owned CB&I plan to jointly reduce the cost of liquid hydrogen infrastructure and ramp up its use under a new collaboration.
Having signed the collaborative agreement on Wednesday (September 18), the pair intend to remove barriers, drive down costs and improve scalability across the liquid hydrogen supply chain.
With hopes of providing liquid hydrogen infrastructure globally, KHI President, Energy Solutions & Marine Engineering Company, Motohiko Nishimura, said the companies aim to accelerate the transition to a “zero-carbon society.”
It comes after terminal and storage builder CB&I, alongside Hanwha Ocean, received Approval in Principle (AiP) from DNV for the design of a cargo system and an 80,000m3 liquid hydrogen carrier.
Read more:DNV approves CB&I and Hanwha Ocean’s liquid hydrogen carrier design
Mark Butts, Senior Vice-President of CB&I, said “This strategic partnership represents a significant advancement in liquid hydrogen storage capabilities.”
Both KHI and CB&I have progressively ramped up plans to transport and store liquid hydrogen to support anticipated global trade of the energy carrier.
Hydrogen’s inherent low volumetric density makes it notoriously difficult to store and transport, with a variety of solutions, such as hydrogen derivatives, being explored.
Despite concerns about the energy consumption of liquifying hydrogen, many are pursuing the pathway, hoping to benefit from LNG experience.
Speaking at the Oman Green Hydrogen Summit last December, Ellen Ruholas, Head of New Energy Projects at Zenith Energy, said adding scale to liquid hydrogen operations could elevate those issues.
Read more:Creating a hydrogen midstream to Europe and capitalising on liquid hydrogen’s potential
“The first thing people say is ‘it’s too energy extensive’. That’s true in small scale, but once you get up to 300 tonnes per day, or 100,000 tonnes per year, per train, you’re starting to get to similar sizes of an LNG,” she told the summit.
“So when we upscale to that sort of quantity, the unit cost per kilogramme of hydrogen electricity drops well below 10kwh/per kg, which is slightly lower than making ammonia.”
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