The result will be less investment and a deficit in the domestic hydrogen projects required to strengthen Europe’s energy security.Įurope’s loss will be hydrogen exporters’ gain. But elevated gas and power prices over the next several years threaten to weaken the economics of blue and green hydrogen in Europe. Hydrogen is central to Europe’s future energy mix, even more so as it pivots away from dependence on imported Russian gas following the war in Ukraine. Second, the energy crisis will stimulate international trade in hydrogen. But the slowdown in blue hydrogen investment will set alarm bells ringing for CCS developers, particularly in Europe where half of all current CCS projects are for blue hydrogen use cases. This may prove to be a quirk of the flow of projects reaching investment decisions in Q1. Q1 2022 saw an intriguing shift with green hydrogen projects accounting for 95% of those added to the project pipeline, with blue hydrogen just 5%. Blue hydrogen, produced by splitting natural gas into hydrogen and CO2 and fitted with carbon capture and storage, has accounted for the rest. Green hydrogen, electrolysed from water using renewable electricity, has long dominated the project pipeline, accounting for 80% of all projects from 2018 to 2021. These new projects lifted the cumulative global pipeline by 20% to 64 mmtpa, of which almost two-thirds are in the six leading countries including Australia, the UK, the US and the Netherlands. The US (51%) dominated the Q1 project announcements, while Spain (20%), Paraguay (11%) and Egypt (8%) give a sense of how hydrogen is going global.

There were 75 new project announcements in Q1, totalling 11.1 mmtpa of new capacity, close to a quarterly record. Bridget van Dorsten, Hydrogen Analyst, is speaking at the conference and took me through her latest thoughts on how the industry is developing.įirst, global investment in low-carbon hydrogen supply is ramping up. That’s what needs to happen in AET-1.5, our accelerated energy transition scenario to get the world on a 1.5 ☌ pathway. Among these is the US$1.4 trillion growth opportunity: how low-carbon hydrogen production, blue and green, scales up from almost zero today to 0.5 Bt, meeting 15% of the global primary energy mix by 2050. Our Hydrogen Conference on 27 and 28 April in London will examine the big themes in detail. It can also be part of the solution for countries reliant on imported oil, gas and coal to bolster energy security. This super-versatile energy carrier will have a critical role in decarbonising hard-to-abate, high-emissions sectors including power, steel and fertiliser. The world won’t get to net zero by 2050 without low-carbon hydrogen.

Green ember