Linde charts the way for clean energy growth

Ahead of Gastech, Energy Connects speaks to David Burns, Vice President of Clean Energy Development at Linde, about the key role the company intends to play in the energy transition and why Gastech is such an important show to connect with the industry.

What do you see as the future for hydrogen and LNG in terms of opportunities?
Over the last few months everyone has heard a lot about Europe’s goal to become not only energy independent with the issues around gas supply from Russia in particular, but to do it sustainably.

In many ways LNG is already a low-carbon alternative and we believe there is an opportunity to increase imports of LNG in a way which facilitates future imports of cleaner derivatives such as ammonia and hydrogen.

We can create synergies off the need to increase LNG, eventually leading to clean hydrogen in a sustainable way, reducing the carbon intensity of the fuel infrastructure in Europe.

At Linde, we have technologies in-house and decades of operational experience that can help in this transition and we are looking forward to working with various partners, governments and the public to achieve the goal of energy independence in a sustainable way.

What is Linde doing in terms of clean energy development?
We recognised a couple of years ago that clean energy, in particular clean hydrogen, was going to play a key role in the transition away from a fossil fuel-based economy. We are looking to harness the technologies we have in the production, processing, transportation and the use of hydrogen. That, coupled with the experience we have gained over the last 100 years or so in producing hydrogen, has led to a two and a half billion dollar business in hydrogen.

We are well positioned to have a key role to play and have been putting resources in place to help us drive the transition across the whole value chain, leveraging our technology, infrastructure, and know-how that we have gained over the years. We are not only looking to play a key role in the transition but also helping to accelerate it.

What clean technologies are you focusing on and what will you be showing at Gastech in Milan?
At Gastech in Milan, we are going to show customers and partners where and how Linde can help with the transition to clean energy.

We will be showcasing our competencies across the whole value chain, for gray, blue and green hydrogen, highlighting our technologies, such as carbon capture, electrolysis, NG/H2 blending, and hydrogen refueling.

We are the leading producer of liquid hydrogen in the world and over half the world’s liquid hydrogen today is produced using Linde technology.

As we look to hydrogen being exported into Europe from places like Australia, Chile or North Africa, we see the transport of liquids via the sea as going to play a big role. We also think the transport of liquid is going to play a role in developing a regional infrastructure in places like Germany and France, as it is today in the United States. We also have over 1,000 kilometres of pipeline where we move pure hydrogen, which we do around the Gulf Coast in the US, in Germany and other places, so we have a lot of experience with moving hydrogen via pipeline.

On the end user side of things, we have Hydrogen Fueltech – the leading producer of fuelling stations for filling vehicles with hydrogen. We are looking now to move into the heavy commercial sector such as trucks, buses, trains, and ferries. Later this year there will be a new station starting up in Germany for the fuelling of 14 trains with hydrogen that we will own and operate. We just recently formed a global partnership with Airbus to help decarbonize aviation and we are also working with our established customer base in steel, chemicals and other industry segments to help decarbonise their operations.

How are you looking to expand your clean energy portfolio?
We have a proper pipeline of clean energy projects with approximately 300 projects with close to $5 billion on a probability weighted basis. Those are both blue and green hydrogen projects, so it involves both carbon capture and electrolysis.

We see clean hydrogen as a real growth opportunity for Linde going forward. We have a strong $2.5 billion business today and we are looking to build on that. We think we can step up when it comes to growing and accelerating clean hydrogen going forward.

What are you hoping of getting out of Gastech in September?
There is a lot of momentum in the industry going into Gastech in Milan. It is the perfect opportunity to catch up with what is going on in the industry, which is so fast moving. Gastech will give us a real opportunity to talk to customers and partners about what they are up to and get insights on the latest updates in the industry. I think Gastech will be a good platform to build on our experiences and really look to new ways to work together as an industry and help accelerate the energy transition if we want to meet the climate goals that we have all committed to last year in Glasgow at COP26 and will reaffirm later this year in Egypt, at COP27.