Hydrogen race underway in province

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This article was published 09/02/2023 (988 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Manitoba might be close to the back of the pack but the hydrogen race is officially underway in this province.

Two small green hydrogen production facilities are in the planning stages along with Winnipeg Transit, which will initially produce its own supply for the hydrogen fuel cell buses it has on delivery, and industry participants have formed their own discussion group to get a supply chain organized.

Demand for and the technology to produce hydrogen has existed for decades but global decarbonization momentum has turbocharged the industry.

There are different ways to make it, some using natural gas and some using electricity. According to the International Energy Agency, the production of hydrogen — a zero-emission fuel — is responsible for annual CO2 emissions equivalent to those of Indonesia and the United Kingdom combined.

It is an example of some of the challenges faced by the alternative energy field in that sometimes the production of “clean” energy requires the consumption of fossil fuels.

Although it ranks in the top 10 countries in the world in hydrogen production, as recently as 2017, Canada only had about 100 companies working in the field, employing about 2,100 people, and generating only modest revenues of about $200 million.

Natural gas is involved in virtually all of the hydrogen produced in Canada today and is referred to as grey hydrogen (or blue hydrogen if there is CO2 sequestration involved).

Josh Zaporzan, a Winnipeg entrepreneur, is keen to get in at the ground level in the production of green hydrogen that uses green hydroelectricity from Manitoba Hydro.

Zaporzan’s new company, H2MB, is in the process of designing a small-scale production facility that would be capable of producing 1,000 kilograms per day. He is currently talking to potential users and potential investors. He figures he needs to raise $15 million to $20 million to build the facility that will be designed to be able to increase in size.

Considering the technical challenges and costs and the early stage the market is in, he’s got his work cut out for him.

But Zaporzan is nothing if not enthusiastic.

“We’ve made some phenomenal contacts lately and have had some great feedback,” he said. “We are super excited to be pioneers in this space in Manitoba.”

Zaporzan’s goal is to be the first producer of green hydrogen — using clean Manitoba water and green Manitoba hydroelectricity — in the province.

Another company, Charbone Hydrogen Corp. out of Brossard, Que., may be a little ahead of Zaporzan. It has already leased a 4.6-acres of land west of Selkirk’s decommissioned wastewater treatment plant.

Daniel Charette, the chief operating officer of Charbone, said the environmental permitting process and community consultation will start within weeks and the small facility — about 200 kilograms per day — could be in production by as early as the end of this year.

“Our concept is to break the chicken and egg situation where there are no users of hydrogen because there’s no producers of green hydro,” Charette said. “We decided to buy the equipment and start producing something that we understand there will be an actual market for. Then, new processors will start using hydrogen.”

Charbone is about to start producing hydrogen at another facility in Quebec and has two more planned in New Brunswick and Quebec.

At the end of 2020, the Canadian government published Hydrogen Strategy for Canada: Seizing the Opportunities for Hydrogen. In it, it said, “If Canada fully seizes the opportunity presented by hydrogen, it could lead to more than 350,000 sector jobs and direct revenues of over $50 billion per year by 2050.”

While some provinces, including Alberta and B.C., have their own strategic plan, the Manitoba government has not published anything on the development of a hydrogen industry in this province since 2003.

A spokesperson for Kevin Klein, the new environment and climate minister, would say only that the province is in a “unique position to attract green ventures, because we provide a clean energy source” but said it’s looking to the federal government to secure support for hydrogen development and other green economic opportunities.

In Alberta, Suncor and Atco are collaborating on a potential project near Fort Saskatchewan being designed to produce 300,000 tonnes per year of blue hydrogen.

In April, Edmonton will host the Canadian Hydrogen Convention, the largest hydrogen industry conference in North America.

David Ghoris, one of the organizers of the event, said they expect to have 6,000 to 8,000 people in attendance, potentially twice the number they had at the inaugural conference last year. The main sponsor is TC Energy, the pipeline company, and other sponsors include energy companies such as Atco and Enbridge.

“There is definitely an appetite to see how the hydrogen industry can help us achieve our net zero goals by 2050,” Ghoris said.

Erin Cooke, Winnipeg Transit’s project manager for the Bus Electrification Program, said because there is no hydrogen supplier available right now, it is about to post an RFP for its own production equipment to make about 500 kilograms per day.

“We’ve talked with H2MB and Charbone but their timing for getting production online is not aligned with the timing we needed,” she said. “Hopefully this will fill the gap while we wait for the local supply chain to pick up.”

Zaporzan said the plan at this point is for H2MB to focus on potential customers in the heavy-duty transportation sector but because usage is currently limited to industrial applications, there is not much of a distribution or refuelling infrastructure in place in Manitoba.

He acknowledged that part of the process he is engaged in is to try to find partners who would agree to investigate the potential in hydrogen.

“We’re balancing investor conversations at the same time working with organizations and individuals here in Manitoba to look at different types of pilot projects we could do to introduce green hydrogen and fuel cell technology into the marketplace,” he said.

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca