A Walk Through the “Hydrogen Valley”
www.posiv.cz ǀ 11
HYDROGEN
How are the funds from the Operational Programme
Just Transition used?
In short, it has been decided to fund 45 smaller and
larger projects, roughly half of both, and there remains
the aforementioned billion for hydrogen in the form
of the so-called “network solution”. It is not much,
but it is enough to cover the basic project preparation
and the first implementations which can no longer be
postponed.
How do you imagine the solution for the city and
long-distance bus transport?
The region is divided into 16 areas in which individual
companies compete, always for 10 years, with the
newest ones coming in 2028. That's the target year for
us. Either we will have hydrogen buses by then or we'll
continue to be troubled by emissions.
Can you give us some idea of how hydrogen is
produced? Can you also tell us about the interesting
“waste” products?
The electrolysis of water from 1 MWh of electricity
yields 200 kWh of heat, 21 kg of hydrogen and 79 kg
of oxygen. We thus have three commodities that we
can use to "cheapen" the production of hydrogen by
selling both heat (to thermal power plants) and oxygen
(e.g. for welding). Ideally, we should therefore produce
hydrogen either directly at thermal power plants or at
least near them.
A hydrogen filling station is planned at Ostrava-central
station, because trains have long downtimes there.
The heat produced can be consumed in a heat exchange
station in Nová Karolina, after an agreement with
Veolia, and a short distance away is Vítkovice, which
again needs a huge amount of oxygen. If everything
is ideally handled in one place, the price of hydrogen
will be reduced dramatically. Our transport model has
16 of these hydrogen nests, 12 of which we have already
thought out and we are starting to design them.
Which project are you most intensively working on?
Hydrogen zero-emission trains. However, it takes
four years to produce a train, so we already have to
work intensively on selecting carriers for hydrogen
trains that will run in 2030. Electric operation would
be the best and cheapest. The problem is that
the Railway Administration is unable to guarantee it
for 2030. I have to commend the state, because when
trains and regional ones compete together, it will
be cheaper this way. In October, we will announce
to the European Commission that we want to run
on hydrogen from 2030. In 2024, we will begin
the competition. Everybody has a year to prepare and
bid. If the legislation is not ready, the whole thing will
collapse and we will continue to run diesel trains. We
can only hope that does not happen.
Your personal priority at the moment is focused on
another type of transport. Can you tell us about that?
We need to replace the existing large buses with
hydrogen buses, but that would cost half a billion more
per year operationally, which is money that can be used
for example to repair all the roads in the region. Hydrogen
buses tend to be smaller, with up to 40 passengers, and
operating models need to be adjusted accordingly. If this
can be done, hydrogen buses will be in full operation in
our region. Now I need to convince the decision-makers
not to look at what has been, but instead what will be,
and what needs to be done in the future for an improved
and cleaner city and region.
We wish you good luck and thank you for the interview.
Text: redakce
Foto: Moravskoslezský kraj
Ing. Jakub Unucka, Ph.D., MBA
1. náměstek hejtmana Moravskoslezského kraje
pro energetiku, průmysl a chytrý region
1
st
Deputy Governor of the Moravian-Silesian Region
for Energy, Industry and Smart Region