Greenify #100: Hydrogen takes the scene!
March 2, 2024
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📌 Fact of the week
Greenify has reached its 100th edition, marking more than two years of informing its readers weekly on the key matters related to the energy transition! 😃
Hottest news of the week…
Regulation 🗃 – The SEC takes action on ESG rules
What happened: Wall Street’s top regulator, the SEC, will vote on March 6 on whether to adopt rules requiring U.S.-listed companies to report climate-related risks. In practice, this would force companies to adopt common disclosure metric on several environmental related point; these include greenhouse gas emissions, risks and how much money they are spending on the transition to a low-carbon economy. As investors are increasingly worried about companies’ ESG profiles, this rule should come in handy.🇺🇸
Zoom out: Climate disclosure rules were first proposed by Biden’s administration over two years ago, but had encountered strong pushback by both companies and Republican state officials. Compared to the initial one, the new proposal does not include requirements for Scope 3 emissions, hard to measure and generally met with skepticism due to the ambiguity in measuring them: this might help the rules to be adopted. However, with an incoming election around the corner, it’s hard to say at this stage how this matter will evolve.⏳
Business 💰 – Shell reducing on solar
What happened: Shell’s US solar business, “Savion”, is up for sale. According to Reuters, a quarter of the assets are up for sale. No details on valuation have been disclosed; from a capacity perspective, Savion is developing 39.1 GW of solar and storage projects, and has completed sites with capacity of more than 2.3 GW. Interestingly, Shell had acquired Savion in December 2021 under former CEO Ben van Beurden.☀️
Zoom out: Despite Savion was acquired only 26 months ago, under new CEO Wael Sawan priorities for the company have clearly changed. Sawan has said he wants to focus on most profitable businesses, namely oil and gas, and focus on accessing low-carbon power which it could sell and trade rather than owning the generation assets, where returns are usually lower. This divestment is in line with other recent asset sales: Shell has exited a number of offshore wind projects and has reduced its hydrogen business recently.🌬
Innovation 💡 - Can we find the holy grail of hydrogen?
What happened: We have a confident start-up that aims to solve the biggest problems of hydrogen: storage & transportation. H2MOF, a California-based startup founded in 2021 by Nobel laureate Fraser Stoddart and Omar Yaghi, aims to revolutionize hydrogen storage by compressing the molecule in a solid state by using engineered materials. More precisely, they plan to use Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOFs), which are structures customizable at a molecular level, making them suitable for gas storage!🤔
Zoom out: Hydrogen is crucial for decarbonizing heavy industries but poses storage and transportation challenges due to its low energy density—three times smaller than natural gas—and the extreme cold required for liquefaction (about -250°C). Therefore, a method to compress it at low pressures and ambient temperatures would be the “holy grail.” The founders of H2MOF are optimistic that near-optimal solutions could emerge within a few years, with a groundbreaking solution anticipated within the next decade. Let’s keep our fingers crossed 🤞!
Deep dives of the week…
Chart of the week - The Emissions’ Playbook📒
As we mentioned in our “Regulation” news, the SEC is due to vote next week on climate related disclosure rules for US listed companies. The new proposal on which the organization will vote does not include Scope 3 disclosures but only Scope 1 and 2. Scope 3 emissions are the most ambiguous and relate to companies’ supply chains. A quick refresher below on the difference between the three types.
Source: GHG Protocol
Deal of the week - Hydrogen Generators!
GeoPura, a company in the UK focusing on clean hydrogen energy, secured £56 million in funding, which will mainly be used to expand the production of Hydrogen Power Units (i.e. generators) .The investment includes £30 million from the UK Infrastructure Bank and additional support from Barclays Sustainable Impact Capital and other existing investors like GM Ventures and Siemens Energy Ventures.
GeoPura’s Hydrogen Power Units (HPUs) are eco-friendly alternatives to diesel generators. By 2033, GeoPura aims to have more than 3,600 HPUs in operation, potentially reducing CO2 emissions by over ten million tonnes, if burning green hydrogen! Their generators are already used by key clients like the British Ministry of Defense! 💪
👋 See you next Friday, for the best sum up of this coming week!
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