Additional green hydrogen investment powers up New Zealand’s energy future
A major new investment in New Zealand’s energy future could transform the way we produce, use and store energy.
GNS Science is leading a team of national researchers that has been awarded $9.213 million over the next six years as part of the Advanced Energy Technology platform (AETP) of MBIE’s Strategic Science Investment Fund.
This additional funding supports GNS Science’s mission to deliver a sustainable zero-carbon energy future for Aotearoa to help meet the country’s goal of net zero emissions by 2050.
The Aotearoa: Green Hydrogen Technology programme complements the GNS-led Endeavour-funded programme, Powering NZ’s Green Hydrogen Economy, which is working to make the hydrogen production process more efficient and less expensive.
The new AETP funding will look at a “future state” for green hydrogen, including direct sunlight-to-hydrogen systems which enable off-grid generation, and using wastewater and seawater in the catalysis process.
It will also look at ways to build capability in the hydrogen industry – by training engineers, scientists and technicians who can help scale up the industry.
"We’re particularly focused on partnerships with iwi and wananga, to support the learning and development of rangatahi Māori in the energy sector,”
Dr Kennedy says the opportunities in hydrogen are enormous.
The Aotearoa: Green Hydrogen Technology programme is funded by the Advanced Energy Technology platform of the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment’s Strategic Science Investment Fund
The programme is led by GNS Science and will include collaborations with Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, the University of Auckland, Canterbury University, Otago University and the MacDiarmid Institute, as well as industry and private companies.
A Car That Runs On Just Sunlight + Water...!? | Intro To Green Hydrogen Technology transcript
I was about to start. Oh right. Hi i'm Michelle and i'm Ved and we work here at GNS science
researching and developing green hydrogen technologies which will help New Zealand
to lower its carbon footprint. Are you wondering what we mean by green hydrogen technologies?
Well take a look at this car would you believe me if i told you that it runs on nothing but sunlight
and water? That's awesome. Let's find out how that works first let's take a step back. We all
know that we need to reduce our carbon footprint and you probably know of electric vehicles as one
way that we can do this. But another option you may not know about is using hydrogen as a fuel.
Hydrogen powered vehicles can refuel much faster than having to recharge a battery and they can go
far further before having to refuel. Okay but where does the hydrogen come from? It's
a great question, well the chemical symbol for water is h2o two hydrogens for every oxygen.
We can separate out the hydrogen and oxygen using a process called electrolysis this
process needs electricity to work. Oh it would be even better if we had a lightning bolt
electricity but anyway let's take a closer look at the toy car. This solar panel
is providing electricity to the electrolyzer we've put some water in the electrolyzer so
now it can separate the hydrogen into this tank here. Once the tanks are full
they can be used to fuel the car. This time the electrolyzer is run in reverse in which
case it's called fuel cell. A fuel cell is simply a device which combines hydrogen
and oxygen to produce electricity which will power the car and water as an exhaust. Okay so our car's
been making a hydrogen using the solar panel, and now it's ready to go. We'll disconnect the panel,
flip a few switches... whoa it actually worked!
It works! Okay so this little speedster isn't going to break any land speed records, but it
does demonstrate how hydrogen can be used to power out vehicles and reduce their co2 emissions dude.