KU sets forth National Hydrogen Initiative on the occasion of World Environment Day

There is a need for a consolidated program initiated and owned by the Government to establish and incubate the green hydrogen economy for Nepal, and prepare the business sector to take over the commercial applications in a competitive manner at local, regional, and international markets.

Nepal is among the countries that are most vulnerable to climate change and its effects, including more severe water-induced disasters and extreme hydro-meteorological events, such as drought, storms, flooding, landslides, debris flows, soil erosion, and avalanches. The energy-related CO2 emissions account for two-thirds of global greenhouse gas emissions. For a reasonable likelihood to stay below 1.5 °C of warming, global net anthropogenic CO2 emissions should decline by around 45% by 2030, from 2010 levels, reaching net-zero by around 2050.

The groundbreaking research and innovation and the policy-based interventions to promote renewables as the primary supply of energy is pushing green hydrogen to overtake fossil fuel both technically and economically. Most of the developed countries have already released their policies and strategies to promote and adopt green hydrogen as the future energy vector. It is expected that the demand for hydrogen to rise by 10 times by the year 2050 compared to that of 2015 with the major consumption in the commercial sector not existing today.

At present more than NPR 20 Billion is used to import fossil-based fuels for Nepal, which is about 10% of the National GDP. It is expected that the demand for fossil fuel in Nepal could rise to 6 times by the year 2050 than that of 2010. It is projected that the total supply of primary energy from diesel in Nepal for the year 2050 will rise to 18% from about 5% at present. While the rest of the world is gearing up to cut the dependency on fossil fuels, such exponential growth in demand for petroleum products in Nepal is very alarming.

The government of Nepal in 2016 planned to formulate the Low Carbon Economic Development Strategy that envisions the country's plan to promote economic development through low carbon emissions in different sectors. Petrol cars hold the largest share of vehicles in the transportation sector of Nepal. However; the import of diesel is almost three times that of petrol. Due to the lightweight and short travel distance, battery-based EVs could be the alternative to petrol-based vehicles. The Government of Nepal has announced an ambitious plan to replace the light vehicles running on petrol with electric vehicles by 2031. Several countries are considering Hydrogen as an option for diesel replacement in the transportation sector. Nepal can consider this as a future plan.

The LPG gas has been consistently on top of fossil fuel energy consumption in Nepal. The demand for LPG for cooking is more than double that of electricity and tends to remain the same until 2035. Unless an alternative to LPG is sought, Nepal cannot limit its CO. emissions and dependency on cooking fuels from other countries. Synthetic/Green Natural Gas is coming as the alternative to methane for commercial application. The technology to generate hydrogen from renewable electricity and combine it with bi-product CO2 or captured CO2 from the air to get the methane is getting commercially feasible.

Urea production, metal mining, and processing, agrochemical industry are other areas where green hydrogen is replacing fossil fuels.

The National Hydrogen Initiatives is an activity under 'University's role in the state transformation' from the new leadership at KU. Academic exercises are open knowledge thus we invite all the relevant stakeholders to contribute and take away whatever is possible.

The Himalayas range forms the greatest band of mountains on the planet bringing huge prospects of hydropower development opportunities. This is especially true in Nepal, where more than 20000 MW of hydropower projects are under some stage of development. However, the forecasted domestic demand for electricity falls much lower than its production within this year. By the end of 2028, Nepal could have an excess of 3500 MW of electricity that might go to waste if proper energy management and policies are not defined at present. Export of excess hydroelectricity by cross-border grid connection among the South Asian Countries is one of the major discussions in Nepal. However, geopolitical complexities and high energy prices in Nepal may limit this possibility.

The surplus hydroelectric power and abundant solar energy in Nepal can profitability be converted as green hydrogen for local utilization, and export to the international market. The production and supply of green hydrogen energy could be one of the innovative businesses for Nepal. This will have a significant impact on the energy mix scenarios in the country and the energy export alternatives. This can also be one of the major sources of revenue from carbon trading. However, it needs very strong political and social commitments, high-level knowledge transfers from university to the industry and business sector, and willingness from the commercial and business sectors to diversify their business towards Green Hydrogen.

The Green Hydrogen Lab at KU has been established with the vision "Nepalese industries specialized to produce, store, transport, and use green hydrogen energy at a commercial level". Nepal Oil Corporation, Alternative Energy Promotion Centre, Jade Consult Pvt. Ltd and the Norwegian Government's NORHED-Il project have been contributing to the research activities in the lab. It is extremely important to push forward ongoing activities in the green hydrogen for the national level impact with industrial and commercial activities. Intervention and support from the Government play the pivoting role for successful outcomes.

Progressive activities at Green Hydrogen Lab, KU:

• KU-Govt. of Nepal Program "National Hydrogen Initiative"
• KU: SOE-SOA Project "Green Society Initiatives"
• KU: SOE-SOL Project "Energy Law for Green Economy in Nepal"
• KU-HUC/ICIMOD "Energy ecosystem for the transition towards a low carbon society in HKH region"
• KU-World Bank Studies on "Green hydrogen as business opportunities in Nepal"
• KU-Asian Development Bank Partnership on "Deep Dive workshop on Hydrogen Technology on Nepal Case"