The Foresight Hydrogen 2020 webinar series brought together policy makers, project developers, innovators, researchers and key stakeholders to highlight thought leadership, promote high technology, catalyse collaboration and share investment opportunities within the Hydrogen Economy.
Yu Zhang, an Imperial College London Ph.D. candidate in Energy and Environmental Engineering, told us about his experience at the webinar series:
‘The series was a great opportunity for anyone who is interested in advancing the hydrogen economy, because of its diversity of topics and depth of discussion. The series invited a wide range of stakeholders who are working on the hydrogen economy, including researchers, engineers, policymakers, consultants, etc. Therefore, it provided a marvellous chance to collectively reflect what are the bottlenecks for advancing an H2 economy, and what are the potential solutions.
For example, high cost is one of the main hurdles for a hydrogen economy, and the series included stakeholders striving to cut down the cost in different segments of the H2 economy. There were granular discussions on the offshore wind green hydrogen generation cost. There was an expert view on the low-cost advantages of blue hydrogen with CCS. There were also discussions on the cost-reduction by reusing the existing oil and gas infrastructure. The combination of these opinions forms a comprehensive depiction of the cost levers for advancing the H2 economy.
Personally speaking, the series was particularly enlightening and inspiring to me as the next stage of my Ph.D. research will be focused on hydrogen pipeline transportation. The wide range of topics gave me a good holistic view of the problem I am trying to solve. The first-hand experiences shared by engineers working on the frontline also gave me a realistic understanding of the problem, as compared with the information that can be found online’.