Renewable energy (RE) generation and storage will be the key to Estonian energy independency. As the country has an enormous RE potential, by far exceeding the country’s (primary) energy consumption, energy may well become an export factor of interest for the country.

As RE is produced intermittently and the Estonian electricity grid will never be able to accommodate both the volumes and intermittency of RE, storing RE in the form of hydrogen will become a major challenge (next to battery storage for short term).

Given the fact that hydrogen as an energy carrier will become available in large quantities, Hydrogen Valley partners want to learn how to use and how to scale up the use of hydrogen and – in the long run – the export of hydrogen.

In the short term there are at least five sites planned for large scale onshore solar energy production where partly converting energy to hydrogen will make sense, as delivering the amounts of energy to the grid will be either very costly or not doable at all. In the long term, at least part of the (7GW) offshore potential will be converted to hydrogen from 2029 onwards.

This brings the opportunity to gain experience in the period 2023-2029 how, where and under what conditions to produce, transport, store and use hydrogen as an energy carrier in an economic and efficient way, to be able to adapt to large scale situations from 2029 onwards.

Local governments, regions and private partners are already planning or investigating use cases in transport (shipping, aviation, rail, public transport, heavy duty, long range) and fuelling opportunities. In industry, hydrogen as a component for future-proof fuels is on the radar. In the energy system, hydrogen as a means for short term and long-term storage, grid stability and heating are in scope and ambitions on import (short term) and export (long term) are being investigated.

The main challenge for the Hydrogen Valley partners will be to learn how to solve the chicken and egg (production and use) challenge and to jointly build up the links in the value chain in the coming years, even if these links would not be financially feasible in the short term.

In essence, the Hydrogen Valley strategy is thereby to facilitate the hydrogen learning curve from 2023 to 2029 to profit maximally from 2029 onwards in an economically responsible way.

The projects in scope cover most of the economic clusters in Estonia, including energy generation and conversion and the use of hydrogen. The interconnectivity of the projects and the Hydrogen Valley partners positions Estonia as the first nationwide Hydrogen Valley on the planet.

Estonian partners want to maximize cooperation with other countries to optimize the learning curve and broaden the market.

Estonian partners want to optimally respond to European programs facilitating the hydrogen learning curve: Fit For 55 (laying the groundwork), RePowerEU (accelerating energy independency), tHrive (facilitating and accelerating new hydrogen economy), Hydrogen Valleys (accelerating Valley learning curve), TEN-T (investing in hydrogen-driven transport corridors), Hydrogen Backbone (including Elering) and others.