The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), its innovation laboratory and Energy Division, will collaborate with the CRUSA Foundation at the request of the Ministry of Environment and Energy (Minae), to carry out a study on the national and global green hydrogen market, with in order to explore the eventual participation of Costa Rica in that business.
Competitiveness
As reported by the government this past week, the study will be aimed at knowing the current situation of green hydrogen at a global level (actors, demand and cost projections), analyze the economic competitiveness of Costa Rican green hydrogen compared to other export markets, estimate the potential production and its future demand in the national market in different segments (transport, industry, conventional fuel additive, input for synthetic fuels and energy storage), as well as estimating the macroeconomic impact of the development of an eventual industry of this type in the country.
The study will be carried out by a Belgian firm specialized in energy and sustainable transport and according to the work schedule, the conclusions and results will be ready during the second half of this year.
The Minae explained that green hydrogen is produced by the electrolysis (or decomposition) of water from electricity from renewable sources. Therefore, it is a process that does not emit carbon dioxide (CO2) and is considered as one of the alternatives to help reverse the growth of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, promote economic development and create employment.
Increased demand
The Ministry affirmed that the expectations of increases in the demand for green hydrogen in the coming decades at the world level, open to Costa Rica the possibility of becoming an exporter, mainly because it has a clean energy matrix and enough water, which which, in turn, would help develop the infrastructure and the national hydrogen market necessary to contribute significantly to creating a decarbonized economy.
Vehicle potential
At the beginning of January, some major car brands have been investing heavily in the development of hydrogen-powered engines for years: Honda, DaimlerChrysler, Ford, General Motors / Opel, Hyundai, Kia, Renault / Nissan or Toyota are some of them.
Also, several countries have considered green hydrogen as a viable alternative to electric motors: Japan recently said that it wants to become a “hydrogen economy” and countries such as Germany, the United States, France, China or Russia have trains that run on green hydrogen.
