The UAE sees a potentially enormous export market for its nascent sustainable aviation fuels and green hydrogen projects.
Graham Warwick
Already installing major solar-power projects, the UAE is now moving into green hydrogen production. Credit: Emirates Water and Electricity Company
If the world moves to a hydrogen economy to decarbonize, and aviation with it, the Middle East is certain to retain its role as a leading provider of energy. New areas will compete, such as Africa, but abundant wind and solar power will ensure the Gulf region becomes a major producer of renewable electricity and green hydrogen.
Hydrogen combustion in turbine engines is viewed as potentially the only way to fully decarbonize long-haul aviation, but the size of the liquid hydrogen tanks required could limit aircraft range. This raises the possibility that key hydrogen-producing regions such as the Middle East could also become the world’s refueling hubs.
Ranked the world’s busiest international hub in 2019, Dubai’s airport started life as a modest refueling stop on long-haul flights from Europe to the Far East. Could the United Arab Emirates’ move to position itself as major producer and exporter of hydrogen mean “back to the future” for the region’s role in global aviation?
Green hydrogen is produced by the electrolysis of water using renewable electricity. And synthetic kerosene, or e-kerosene, can be produced by combining the hydrogen with captured CO2. The fuel promises to be carbon neutral, if enough renewable energy and green hydrogen can be produced.
In January, UAE renewable energy company Masdar joined forces with Siemens Energy and Japan’s Marubeni to build a green hydrogen demonstrator plant in Abu Dhabi’s Masdar City. The memorandum of understanding (MoU) includes Etihad Airways and Lufthansa Group, as well as the Abu Dhabi Energy Department and Khalifa University of Science and Technology.
The project is the first step under a strategic partnership between state-owned Mubadala Investment, sole shareholder in Masdar, and Siemens which is aimed at accelerating green hydrogen production in Abu Dhabi. The agreement includes exploring development of sustainable fuels and e-kerosene production for ground transport, shipping and aviation.
The first phase of the demonstration will focus on production of green hydrogen for cars and buses in Masdar City. In parallel, a plant to synthesize kerosene will be built to convert green hydrogen into sustainable aviation fuel (SAF).
This is not the UAE’s first venture into SAF. Boeing and Etihad have cooperated with Khalifa University on a project to produce sustainable fuel from halophytes grown in an integrated facility that uses saltwater to both farm seafood and produce biofuel in a desert environment. An Etihad Boeing 787 conducted a test flight using the fuel in 2019.
This time, the UAE’s eyes are firmly on the export market. In January, Mubadala, the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company and sovereign wealth fund ADQ signed an MoU to establish the Abu Dhabi Hydrogen Alliance. The Alliance aims to position Abu Dhabi as the go-to source for hydrogen exports, produced using both natural gas and renewable energy.
And the export market potentially is enormous. Take the example of Germany, which is leading the change in developing power-to-liquid sustainable transportation fuels using renewable energy, captured CO2 and green hydrogen. Just jet fuel alone will require huge amounts of hydrogen.
German energy company Uniper, which is in talks with Middle East producers, expects Europe will have to import about 50% of its hydrogen by 2030, and Germany as high as 75%. No surprise then that in March the Berlin government signed an MoU with Saudi Arabia to cooperate on hydrogen.
There is a growing number of hydrogen projects across the region. In May, Dubai inaugurated the first industrial-scale solar-powered green hydrogen plant in the Middle East and North Africa. And already this year state-owned Abi Dhabi Ports announced two projects to turn its Khalifa industrial zone into a hub using solar power to produce green hydrogen and convert it to ammonia for export, targeting Europe and the U.S. The region’s future is already taking shape.