September 30, 2021
In recent years, the importance of clean hydrogen in the future energy transition and low-carbon economic development has been increasingly recognized. The Ningxia Yanbao Charitable Foundation recently awarded the Harvard-China Project a grant for comprehensive research on the prospects for clean hydrogen, especially “green” hydrogen produced from water with renewable power, in China's energy and industrial sectors and as an export commodity. The project team—comprised of researchers from Harvard and collaborators at Tsinghua University and other Chinese universities—will develop comprehensive energy system optimization models for evaluating production, storage, transport, and consumption of clean hydrogen in line with China's 2060 carbon-neutral goal, at regional and national scales. The work will consider especially the technical and economic prospects for hydrogen-based decarbonization of “hard-to-abate” sectors, presented not only in peer-reviewed research publications but also in reports summarizing findings for decision-makers.