The facts are overwhelming: Hydrogen is fundamentally necessary to the construction of an all-renewable grid. There are absolutely no other energy storage options that could come even remotely close to working.
The results are clear: We will need hydrogen, and a lot of it, before such a grid can be made to work. This is due to a phenomenon known as Dunkelflaute, or basically a long period of time with very little wind or sun. These periods can last for over a week, and multiple Dunkelflaute periods can occur consecutively. This can end up creating months of very low renewable energy availability.
Such long shortages of electricity will break virtually all non-hydrogen types of energy storage. Alternatives to hydrogen can only alleviate only part of the problem or for only short periods of time. That's because Germany needs about 56 TWh of energy storage, which is fall beyond what either pumped hydro or batteries can provide. Of that 56 TWh of storage, hydrogen will represent about 98% of total energy storage capacity. That's such a large number you actually have to question whether any of the alternatives need to exist.
And what's more interesting, this study is only looking at the grid itself, not the problems of heating, air conditioning, transportation, industry, etc. Nor even ordinary growth in energy usage that is likely to happen. In short, this is just a limited analysis of what it would take to just bring the existing grid to zero emissions with renewables. Which means the need for hydrogen is likely underestimated, and we will need far more than what this study proposes to reach a truly zero emissions society.
So we should expect vast growth in hydrogen production and usage. Not just in the expected areas such as steel or ammonia production, but in nearly every other sector too. Even the act of charging an electric car will imply significant hydrogen usage. In fact, it's becoming increasingly more difficult to even conceive of sectors that can avoid hydrogen. Even the ones that were initially thought to not need hydrogen are in reality incredibly dependent on hydrogen being available. In short, hydrogen is just being ever more important and unavoidable now.
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