Hydrogen: Basin Electric’s Horizons Committee does a deep dive

Hydrogen is creating quite a buzz in the energy sector. This could partially be attributed to the Department of Energy’s $7 billion investment to launch seven regional clean hydrogen hubs (H2Hubs) across the nation in attempt to lower carbon emissions.

In nature, hydrogen is naturally bound to other elements – think H₂O (water) and CH₄ (methane) – and requires energy to separate them. Different color names are assigned to hydrogen depending on the method used in the separation process. Gray hydrogen is the most common form and is generated from natural gas or methane, through a process called steam reforming.

Green hydrogen, also referred to as “clean hydrogen”, is produced using electrolysis – a process that splits water into two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom. Green hydrogen production doesn’t emit CO₂, allowing companies to potentially lower their carbon footprint.

In October 2023, North Dakota House Bill 1546 was adopted, providing forgivable loans of up to $125 million to facilities that use hydrogen from water electrolysis to produce fertilizer. Basin Electric’s Horizons Committee, a cross-departmental team that’s tasked with monitoring and disseminating information on new and emerging technologies, was asked to research the possibility of using green hydrogen for power generation or green ammonia production at Dakota Gas using electrolysis. In January, Jim Sheldon, Basin Electric’s manager of Mechanical Engineering, and Alex Hermes, Dakota Gas’s senior section engineer, shared their findings with the Basin Electric Board of Director’s Operations Committee.

“While incentives exist to make the switch to hydrogen for electricity generation, it is not without its challenges,” Sheldon said.

Some of those challenges include the current lack of hydrogen infrastructure (piping and transportation), the underdevelopment of technology, and hydrogen’s inefficiency.

“The round-trip efficiency of green hydrogen for power generation is roughly 20 percent or less - meaning if 100 megawatt-hours (MWhs) of electricity from wind or solar was used in the electrolysis process to produce hydrogen, that hydrogen burned in a combustion turbine will only yield about 20 MWhs of electricity.” Sheldon said.

There are also challenges associated with the use of green hydrogen to produce ammonia fertilizer (green fertilizer). “It is possible to blend hydrogen from the electrolysis process into the existing ammonia plant, however the capital costs for the needed electrolysis equipment are currently very high,” Hermes said. “Electrolysis requires much larger amounts of electricity and clean water than the existing process.”

When comparing the two methods used to create ammonia, it comes down to the costs of energy used to generate hydrogen. Dakota Gas’s existing gray ammonia production utilizes the chemical energy bound up in synthesis gas and synthetic natural gas, whereas green ammonia production requires electrical energy produced by non-dispatchable generation that relies on intermittent fuel sources like wind and sun. The operating cost of producing green ammonia at Dakota Gas would exceed twice the current cost of ammonia production.