The world is consuming 85 million barrels of oil per day and demand is growing exponentially. We have started to consume more fossil fuel than is being discovered.

The growing gap between production and consumption will lead to scarcity and therefore high prices and conflicts. Furthermore, the impact of burning fossil fuels is already clearly noticeable in climate change.

HyGear is developing clean technologies that increase energy efficiency, decrease emissions and utilize renewable energy sources. At the NWBA (Dutch Hydrogen Fuel Cell Association) CEO Marinus van Driel presented HyGear’s vision towards the future energy grid.

“We need to utilize as much clean and renewable energy sources as possible. However, we must not neglect our fossil resources but only use them more efficiently”, says Mr. van Driel. “Our on-site Hydrogen Generation Systems are a good example of future technologies deployed in today’s markets”.

In our current energy system, there is an imbalance between energy demand and production. The future energy grid will connect the electricity and gas grid to balance demand and production. Also, more renewable energy sources will be utilized and energy losses due to central production methods will be prevented by on-site technologies. A schematic overview of HyGear’s energy outlook is visualized in the image below.

HyGear’s vision is that the gas grid and energy grid will be strongly linked to each other, operating as energy source and energy back bone. Renewable energy sources such as wind and solar energy must be deployed and underutilized sources such as biomass and waste must be utilized.

Increasing electricity generation by wind and sun could lead to energy surpluses. Shortages in gas or surpluses of electricity can be solved with Gas to Power. Based on the 2020 goals of the Dutch government, this will only happen 30 minutes a week in The Netherlands (HyGear, feasibility study 2014). It can be questioned if installing costly Power to Gas units for billions of euro’s is the best solution to handle the weekly 30 minute-surpluses. It might be better to just switch off the windmill during that period or increase the electricity usage during strong winds.