Belgium’s Hydrogen Strategy update boosts global import angle

LONDON (ICIS)–The Belgian government’s revision in mid-October of its National Hydrogen Strategy showed a clear intention of moving even further away from domestic hydrogen production and towards the country being a hub for hydrogen imports from other global regions.

Belgium has always targeted imports of hydrogen or hydrogen derivatives (ammonia, methane) due to a lack of geographical space for renewable generation to produce renewable hydrogen, as well as having import infrastructure already available.

Nonetheless, the revision doubles down on imports into the country with several different sources of supply highlighted.

Belgium has increased its import targets of renewable hydrogen from 3-6TWh in 2030 and 100-165TWh in 2050 to cover its domestic demand, to 20TWh in 2030 and 200-350TWh in 2050 to cover “the transit activities to neighbouring countries” as well as its domestic demand.

To achieve this, Belgium has identified three major import routes for renewable hydrogen to allow for the “diversification of imports” which is “key in order to reduce a country’s dependency and to avoid the development of inadequate power positions that threaten our security of supply.”

NORTH SEA ROUTE (PIPELINE)

The North Sea “is about to become a huge green power plant” in the coming decades according to the strategy, with potentially as much as 260GW of offshore wind-power generation capacity due to be in place by 2050, much of which will be used in the production of renewable hydrogen via the electrolyser process.

“Special attention” from Belgium will be towards the UK and Norway, due to the fact that there is existing natural gas pipeline infrastructure between the countries. A feasibility study will be conducted in the future to investigate the use of both the Interconnector and the Zeepipe for hydrogen transport, as well as for the construction of new interconnectors.

SOUTHERN ROUTE (PIPELINE)

Renewable hydrogen is set to be exported into Europe via pipeline from both Iberia and north Africa according to the European Hydrogen Backbone.

“The opening of this route is dependent on the development of hydrogen transport networks in the Iberia peninsula and through France,” the strategy said.

Indeed, France, Spain and Portugal unveiled plans on 20 October to build a sub-marine pipeline between Barcelona and Marseille to connect the Iberian peninsula to central Europe.

The project, named BarMar, will primarily aim at transporting hydrogen, but would also be adapted to transport other renewable gases and a limited proportion of natural gas as a temporary and transitional source of energy. Its capacity and targeted start date were not unveiled.

Nonetheless, Belgium concedes in the strategy that “most of the Iberian volumes will most probably be consumed on their way and there is little chance that any of these reach Belgian soil by 2030,” with 2040 a “more realistic horizon.”

SHIPPING ROUTE

Belgium is looking to target “locations in the Middle East, Africa, or the Americas,” according to the strategy, which said that “other regions often show even greater potential for producing hydrogen molecules at a low cost.”

The strategy said that “the longer distance implies that the only realistic solution for importing energy from these locations is to convert it into hydrogen derivatives.”

Belgium sees this route as the “most competitive and thus the preferred solution for supplying hydrogen derivatives to Belgium.”

Moreover, with the stronger emphasis on imports, “the federal government wants to position Belgium as an import and transit hub for renewable molecules in Western Europe.”