Eurogas director on decarbonising industry, hydrogen and 'the essence of sector integration'

Gas strategy must be coherent, collaborative and 'look beyond established relationships' says Bronagh O'Hagan.

Everyone’s talking about gas – specifically, about the price of it and how to stop using Russia’s supply.

But behind those particular headline-grabbers are more constant discussions about the evolving role of gas in power generation, buildings, transport and industry.

It’s these questions that I tackled with Bronagh O’Hagan, Communications Director at trade organisation Eurogas. And if she has one clear message, it is that gas needs to be tackled in a holistic, collaborative strategy.

"We must not put industries or sectors in competition with each other – this is super-important. At this point in time, it's so important to look beyond established relationships.

“We have to think about gas case-by-case, country by country. They all need gas and they all need gas as part of incorporating renewable energy as we get more renewable power production.

“If we look across Europe, different countries have a different energy mix: they have different kinds of building stock; the electricity grid and the power grid varies across member states.

“It doesn’t make sense to pull out one policy topic and say ‘this is the thing that we need the most because it's a complex issue’, because all this goes beyond gas as well. We have to work together with industrial sectors and really have a coordinated approach, because that's the essence of sector integration.

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“And there's a role for distribution system operators directly in sector integration because they can connect to the decentralized renewable power production on the one end, end users on the other, and play a role in really planning very sensible decarbonized networks.”

CHP and gas turbines

She says the gas will offer particular solutions for particular sectors in particular countries, whether its 100% hydrogen boilers, blending, hybrid gas electric heat pumps, district heat and power, or gas turbines co-firing with hydrogen.

On the topic of decarbonising industry, she says that for sectors like steel and cement “it's not just about power for the processes – it’s gas as a feedstock as well. So it doesn't make sense to talk only about electrification.”

Watch our interview: Hydrogen Europe chief forecasts market trajectory

A recurring word during our interview is ‘coherence’, and she uses it when describing strategies for cutting emissions in industry.

“A bit like the way that blending helps build the market for hydrogen, using CCS in industries with gas helps to build and scale carbon capture and storage.”

Talking of hydrogen, I wonder what the Eurogas roadmap is for hydrogen during this decade and the next?

Blue or green hydrogen?

“The optimum scenario is that we will use blue hydrogen to 2030 to decarbonize industries. Manufacturing is the main demand for blue hydrogen and that's one of the ways that we can scale the hydrogen market, increase production, build the customer base, and bring down the cost.”

She stresses that “the applications don't know what colour the hydrogen is – it’s just a molecule for the end user".

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"So if we have more demand building the economy with blue hydrogen, then we can bring down the cost for green hydrogen, which we see ultimately as being the most prevalent form in the mix.”

Busy times then for Eurogas and its work with policymakers in Brussels? “So much has to be done and it has to be done quickly and it has to be done right,” says O’Hagan. “It's a challenge – but we're motivated and we're organized going into it.”

Tune in to the full interview to hear Bronagh O’Hagan’s views on other gas hot topics, including decarbonising the maritime sector, the outcomes from COP26, and the EU’s Fit for 55 package.