Turkey prepares for hydrogen tests, long-term roadmap as it seeks to use renewable resources

LONDON (ICIS)–Turkey is limbering up to launch a hydrogen sector building on its significant renewable resources, the projects and international relations manager of the distribution association told ICIS in an interview.

Mehmet Serif Sarikaya said the country was not only in the process of testing different blending grades in the distribution system, but also compiling a roadmap outlining the long-term role of the fuel in overall demand.

Distribution association Gazbir and its research arm, Gazmer, have been conducting various laboratory tests throughout 2020 that allowed them to blend hydrogen in natural gas networks at 5, 10 and 15%.

Sarikaya said the association would further attempt a 20% laboratory test blend in the next two months.

If successful, the blending, currently carried out at a site near Konya in central Anatolia, would be done in the actual distribution and possibly transmission system in 2021.

“If all goes well we will switch testing to actual distribution, using a pilot area with 100 houses. We haven’t decided on the area yet.”

The current test site at Konya is using green hydrogen, which means that the fuel is extracted from water using electrolysis powered by wind or solar capacity.

GREEN AND BLUE

Sarikaya said Turkey was looking to encourage the development of green hydrogen, noting that its renewable resources have expanded at a significant rate within less than two decades.

Turkey’s installed wind capacity currently stands at 8GW while hydro capacity is close to 30GW. However these may increase even more. Academic research suggests that Turkish hydro capacity could rise to 34GW, wind could reach 20GW, while solar and geothermal may reach 5GW and 1GW, respectively, by 2023.

However, Sarikaya said that although green hydrogen was the preferred long-term option, Turkey may also consider hydrogen produced from natural gas or lignite, which would allow it to generate the fuel at scale.

Turkey currently imports nearly 100% of its gas but a recent discovery of over 400 billion cubic metres of gas in the Black Sea combined with significant domestic lignite reserves provide sufficient resources to allow it to develop a sizeable blue and grey hydrogen sector. Grey hydrogen is produced from coal or lignite.

“One has to remember that producing green hydrogen is still four times more expensive than blue hydrogen (produced from natural gas). However, we expect that by 2030-2040 they [green and blue hydrogen] should be equally competitive,” he said.

Sarikaya said hydrogen would be of crucial importance to the heating and transport sectors in Turkey.

Although Turkey is a relative newcomer to natural gas, establishing a gas sector in the early 1990s, it quickly expanded its distribution grids to all 81 provinces within 15 years. This means that a large number of Turkish homes rely on gas-based boilers for heating.

“If hydrogen production were to take off, we expect it to be mostly used for heating homes and for transport.”

He said car emissions were the biggest source of pollution in large cities such as Istanbul. Introducing buses operating on hydrogen would play an important role in providing clean air in such large urban areas.

ROADMAP

Nevertheless, he pointed out that one of the bigger challenges to developing a hydrogen sector in Turkey was persuading consumers that the fuel is safe.

He said Gazbir-Gazmer have been discussing safety risks with academics, the private sector as well as with international institutions such as the EU’s gas lobby group, Eurogas, or the UK’s National Grid.

He said they were expecting to receive certifications from both British and Turkish safety standard institutions before policy-makers would introduce legislation allowing use of hydrogen in transmission and distribution grids.

“We expect new legislation to be introduced in 2021 that would allow 1-2% blends [in transmission and distribution grids],” he said.

The Turkish energy ministry carried out a consultation in 2020, asking, among others, what strategies should be envisaged for the safe use of hydrogen as a fuel.

The responses collected earlier this summer are set to form the basis of a draft roadmap that is expected to be published in the first quarter of 2021.

Sarikaya said Turkey was still at an early stage of developing its hydrogen sector but added state funding would help speed up not just research but also the actual introduction of the fuel in overall consumption.

He said the Gazbir pilot site in Konya has already benefited from €1m from the regulator EPDK and added that another €3-4m would be needed in 2021.

“We are working with universities as well as with 15 private sector companies,” he said, but noted more private sector involvement was needed.