The Green Hydrogen Catapult Aims for $2/kg H2 and Needs $110 Billion, If You’ve Any to Spare

December 10, 2020

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by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) From Europe comes news that major hydrogen project developers including ACWA Power, CWP Renewables, Envision, Iberdrola, Ørsted, Snam, and Yara have joined hands to scale-up green hydrogen production 50-fold in 6 years in a bid to slash the production cost to below $2 per kilo. This report from the Hydrogen Council has focused on $2 per kilo as a pricing tipping point where green hydrogen and its derivatives will become economically competitive.

The partners have dubbed their initiative the Green Hydrogen Catapult.

Now, the incredible price tag, wait for it

The partners have targeted the deployment of 25 gigawatts through 2026 of renewables-based hydrogen production. The Catapult target will require investment of roughly $110 billion and deliver more than 120,000 jobs.

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Companies in this initiative will work toward the target by developing project capacity, supporting the design of specific tools to solve early market challenges, and sponsoring targeted collaboration. Rocky Mountain Institute, a global non-profit think-and-do-tank, will facilitate the initiative alongside partners.

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The addressable market and why people think it’s so big

It is now estimated that green hydrogen could supply up to 25% of the world’s energy needs by 2050 and become a US$10 trillion addressable market by 2050. These projections are underpinned by the recent emergence of strong hydrogen-focused national hydrogen strategies including in Australia, Chile, Germany, the EU, Japan, New Zealand, Portugal, Spain and South Korea.

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“We see no technical barriers” is one way of saying that substantial barriers exist in policy and finance.

Why believe? Absolutely, the world needs hydrogen and needs green everything, so affordable green hydrogen will have many champions and customers. And, the world could use a competitor to EV platforms, unless the story of petroleum has left you entirely comfortable with the unintended consequences of energy monopolies.

Why be skeptical? Our impression is that Europe has the highest “confident renewables consortia” to “actual scaled production any time soon” ratio of any continent. And, the jury is still out on “how soon, how much” there will be a transition to green hydrogen in transport. Competing ideas include a much faster, bigger ramp up in electrics for heavy transport, and a slower exit from blends of liquid fossils and liquid biofuels. More on the story. READ MORE

The green hydrogen hype (Yahoo! News/The Week)