Industrial Automation Magazine India

Hydrogen The Key to the Energy Transition

Published on : Monday 06-06-2022

The value chain from the wind turbine to the hydrogen filling station is long, and it is replete with technical challenges.

June 2022 – Anyone who wants to curb climate change will not be able to avoid hydrogen. The first element of the periodic table is a key factor in decarbonising transport and industry —provided that the gas has been extracted without CO2 emissions. The value chain from the wind turbine to the hydrogen filling station is long, and it is replete with technical challenges.

Decarbonisation will bring about numerous changes, especially in the way we generate, store, distribute, and consume energy. "Green" hydrogen will play a fundamental role in producing energy and decarbonising industry and heavy-duty vehicles in the future. To ensure that automated processes are safe, explosion-protected components and sensors with a variety of different functions are required.

Pepperl+Fuchs has many years of experience in the field of explosion protection and industrial sensor technology, making it the right partner and a binding element in the hydrogen chain —from generating renewable energy, high-pressure compression after electrolysis, transport, and storage through to large-scale industrial use and hydrogen filling stations.

Pepperl+Fuchs offers the right sensors and components for explosion protection along the entire hydrogen value chain.

As with LNG (Liquified Natural Gas), explosion protection components such as the Remote I/O or purge and pressurisation systems are used when transporting liquid hydrogen.

RFID components ensure reliable tank identification. A high-resolution monitor of VisuNET FLX series guides through the fuelling process.

Particularly in energy-intensive sectors such as the chemical, steel and cement industries, hydrogen will play an important role on the road to climate neutrality in the future. This is because the chemical element can replace fossil fuels previously used in industry and therefore make a significant contribution to reducing CO2 emissions from industrial plants. Products and solutions from Pepperl+Fuchs are used in very different places in industrial plants that use hydrogen as an alternative energy carrier.