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Fuel for the future

Published by , Editorial Assistant
World Pipelines,


We see CCUS as a first step in the transition to sustainable energy, with green hydrogen being the end goal, says Caroline Justet, VP for Europe, Strohm, Netherlands.

Fuel for the future

Green hydrogen production is due to soar, heralding enormous potential for multiple industries on the path to net-zero. The European Commission estimates between €180 billion and €470 billion will be needed before green hydrogen can make up 13 - 14% of the EU energy mix in 2050.

Demand for hydrogen, which has grown more than threefold since 1975, continues to rise – almost entirely supplied from fossil fuels, with 6% of global natural gas and 2% of global coal going to hydrogen production. Hydrogen can enable renewables to provide an even greater contribution. It has the potential to help with variable output from renewables, like solar photovoltaics and wind, whose availability is not always well matched with demand. Hydrogen is one of the leading options for storing energy from renewables, and looks promising to be a lowest-cost option for storing electricity over days, weeks or even months.

According to IEA’s report, ‘The Future of Hydrogen’, clean hydrogen is currently enjoying unprecedented political and business momentum, with the number of policies and projects around the world expanding rapidly. The report concludes that now is the time to scale up technologies and bring down costs to allow hydrogen to become widely used.

The UK recently announced plans to attract £4 billion investment to launch a country-wide hydrogen economy, while the US is upping funding to bring down clean hydrogen costs by 80% in the coming decade. Meanwhile, China’s new five-year plan sees hydrogen becoming one of the country’s six industries of the future, and the Dutch government set a 70 GW offshore wind target for 2050 in a bid to underpin electrification and create enough green hydrogen to decarbonise industries.

Hydrogen forms a key part of the European Green Deal, which is the EU’s long-term growth path to make Europe climate natural by 2050. Further to this, the EU is planning to create a €3 billon European Hydrogen Bank to help secure hydrogen supplies for member states in light of its ambition to achieve energy supply independence. The bank will guarantee purchases of hydrogen using resources from the EU’s Innovation Fund – a facility focusing on technology development.

Green hydrogen and the hydrogen economy

With the global energy sector in flux, the versatility of hydrogen is attracting stronger interest from a diverse group of governments and companies.

Green hydrogen is quickly gaining traction as a scalable alternative fuel that could power a climate-neutral economy ...

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