What is your role, not only at Liten but also within the sustainable hydrogen eco-system in Europe?
My name is Julie Cren and I am the Deputy Lab Manager overseeing the analysis of energy systems for the LSET (Laboratory of Energy Systems for Territories) at CEA-Liten. I am also the representative for our Eco-Innovation efforts at Liten, with the aim being to integrate eco-design from the R&D stage for the development of sustainable technologies combining environmental, economic and societal performance. To this end, I support researchers with matters relating to technico-economic and environmental assessments, such as life cycle analyses of processes with a low TRL. I am passionate about things like this because they are at the heart of the energy transition that we are supporting here at Liten.
Since 2023, I have been a member of the European Hydrogen Sustainability & Circularity Panel, established by the Clean Hydrogen Joint Undertaking. This panel brings together 15 European experts, and our collective aim is to help the Clean Hydrogen Joint Undertaking to integrate the principles of sustainability and circularity into European hydrogen research projects.
What are the European panel's goals and the sustainability challenges at stake in the hydrogen projects?
We have a clear objective: to further integrate the principles of sustainability and circularity into hydrogen technologies while also ensuring that the deployment of hydrogen is aligned with the European Union's goals of climate neutrality and a circular economy. We first established a highly comprehensive overview of the sector: what uses are there for hydrogen? How will it fit into regulations? What will be the impacts of its large-scale deployment on soils, critical resources and eco-systems?
We have also reflected on the sustainability indicators to prioritize out of the 20-odd indicators identified, in order to make the process more accessible to project leaders. The challenge here is to offer accessible tools without slowing down the reporting process.
It seems to us that life cycle analyses (LCAs) of the hydrogen technologies developed have now become the essential method in sustainability assessments. By analyzing the way that sustainability had been taken into account in the 356 projects funded by the Clean Hydrogen Joint Undertaking since 2009, it appears that although economic factors were widely accounted for, social indicators and indicators representing the criticality of materials and circularity were mostly overlooked.
What tools or specific projects currently support a more sustainable approach toward hydrogen?
In addition to the analyses, reviewing the projects also allowed us to set out recommendations and the actions to be put in place at the project, program and governance levels. At the project level, for example, it is about improving data collection and communication; publishing deliverables related to the analyses; putting forward case studies to compare the technologies against one another; or even compiling a database with reference values to avoid confidentiality issues.
We at CEA have also had the chance to take part in two major European projects aimed at standardizing eco-design and sustainability methods applied to hydrogen:
🔹 EGHOST, focused on the eco-design of components for hydrogen;
🔹 SH2E, aimed at drawing up standardized guides for the performance of comprehensive life cycle analyses covering the environmental (LCA), economic (LCC) and social (SLCA) assessment applied to hydrogen systems.
All the deliverables from these projects are publically available and accessible, and the abovementioned methods can be applied to other energy technologies.
We are working to widely promote and publicize them, particularly through training sessions and webinars. The aim is quite simple: for these documents to become a common reference for those developing sustainable solutions.
