What is the use of hydrogen in buildings?
The main energy need in buildings is for heating and cooling purposes. And there again there is the discussion of efficiency. Converting electricity into heat is indeed more efficient than converting electricity first into hydrogen and then from hydrogen into heat. However, we have again the issue of seasonality. So when heat is most needed renewable electricity is least available. So energy stored in the form of hydrogen can well be the best solution. A further element in this discussion is district heating. Wherever hydrogen is used or converted into electricity, there is significant waste heat available. If this waste heat can be put into a district heating system, the efficiency of hydrogen is highly increased. Such a situation can easily arise in the context of a hydrogen Vally configuration. A similar but smaller scale case is CHP, where again production of heat and of electricity are combined locally, significantly reducing efficiency losses. So in some situations, using hydrogen for heating will be quite efficient.