Brunei Darussalam: Shifting to a Hydrogen Society

Abstract

Brunei Darussalam has started producing hydrogen, called SPERA Hydrogen, from processed gas to be generated during the production process of liquefied natural gas (LNG) and exporting it to Japan from the end of 2019, with the full support of Japan. Hydrogen is basically classified as clean energy because no carbon dioxide (CO2) is emitted after its combustion. Thus, hydrogen is expected to be used globally in the future. The country’s road transport sector highly consumed gasoline and diesel oil, its share being 38% in 2015, accounting for the highest in the final energy consumption sector. In addition, the major source of power generation in Brunei was natural gas, with a share of 99% in 2015. If the country could shift from oil and gas to hydrogen for transport and electricity generation fuel, it could drastically reduce oil and gas consumption as well as CO2 emissions. This means that hydrogen could be a sustainable energy or technology for Brunei Darussalam. However, a large issue is hydrogen’s high supply cost. This study forecasts hydrogen demand in Brunei Darussalam until 2040. It targets the road transport and power generation sectors, which are energy intensive. So far, hydrogen has not been used in road transport and power generation. This study applies the scenarios approach: (i) case 1, where 10% of vehicles and gas power plants will be replaced by hydrogen vehicles (fuel cell vehicle or FCV) and gas and hydrogen mixed power plants (hydrogen mixing rate at 10%); (ii) case 2, uses 30%; and (iii) case 3, 50%.