Recently, hydrogen accounts for less than 2% of Europe’s current energy consumption and used mainly in chemical industries such as oil refining, ammonia, methanol and steel production. The current hydrogen production mainly comes from natural gas which results in CO2 emission.
The European
Union has set a target of realising climate neutrality by 2050. For this, current
greenhouse gas emissions should drop significantly, more than 55% by 2030. In
this scenario, the demand for hydrogen is expected to rise by 8-fold by 2050. Apart
from industry, hydrogen demand in other sectors such as transportation and
building is expected to rise significantly.

The ‘Fit
for 55’ package has been developed to revise and update EU legislation to keep
EU policies in line with the climate goals. Under ‘Fit for 55’ package, the EC
has set a target of 10Mt of domestic hydrogen production and 10Mt of imports by
2030 to replace natural gas, coal and oil mainly to decarbonise transport and
industries.
In order to
achieve the hydrogen production target, the EU commission recently approved the
first set of 41 important projects, officially called as IPCEI Hy2Tech. Thirty-five
companies and 15 member states including Germany, France, Netherlands and Spain
are involved. The commission has authorised EUR5.4bn (US$5.29bn) of aid and
expects another EUR8.8bn (US$8.62bn) of private investment.
Similarly, the
second important project, IPCEI HyUse was approved by the commission in
September 2022. For this, thirteen member states including Spain, Netherlands,
France and Norway will provide EUR5.2bn (US$5.09bn) in public funding and this fund
is expected to attract additional EUR7bn (US$6.85bn) private investments. Twenty-nine
companies along with member states will participate in 35 projects.
European
clean hydrogen alliance was launched in 2020 to bring industry, national and
local body, civil society and other stakeholders. The objective of the alliance
is to achieve ambitious implementation of hydrogen technologies by 2030.
The
alliance aims to bring together renewable hydrogen production, consumption in
industry, transport and other sectors, and hydrogen transmission and
distribution. For example, hosting ‘electrolyser partnership’ to bring together
electrolyser manufacturers and component suppliers to achieve manufacturing
capacity of 17.5 GW by 2025 in Europe.

The EU alliance
members have submitted more than 1,000 projects for investment pipeline. Many
projects cover hydrogen production and use in industries. The projects are
located across Europe and are expected to start production by the end of 2025.
Germany
In February
2022, Germany allocated EUR200bn (US$220bn) to fund industrial
transformation until 2026, mostly in climate protection and hydrogen
technology. The German government expects a hydrogen production capacity of 5GW
by 2030. To achieve this goal, multiple hydrogen projects have been initiated.
AquaVentus aims
to use offshore wind farms in the North Sea to operate electrolysers. The total
capacity of the electrolysis units installed will be 10GW by 2035. This will
produce 1Mt of green hydrogen. The owner of the project is RWE, who aims to expand
green energy generation capacity of 50GW by 2030, investing EUR50bn (US$49.6bn).
The Netherlands
The Netherlands
is planning a EUR1.5bn (US$1.49bn) hydrogen network and is expected to go online
in 2027. The network will have initial capacity of 10GW.
NortH2 aims
to supply 10GW of green hydrogen by 2040. Initially hydrogen will be produced
in Eemshaven and will be around 1Mtpa. This is expected to reduce carbon
emission up to 10tpa. NortH2 is a consortium owned by Equinor, Eneco, Gasunie,
Groningen Seaports, RWE and Shell Nederland.
Hydrogen
delta aims to build a Gigawatt factory in the Delta region. The project
modality will be production and distribution through hydrogen network. The
capacity will be 1GW and the project period will be 2020-2030.
The
Hydrogen Chemistry company (HyCC) is developing 500mW green hydrogen project at
the Port of Amsterdam. The operation will begin in 2027. HyCC is also planning
to build 100MW in IJmuiden.

Spain
The Spanish
government has developed ‘Hydrogen Roadmap: A commitment to Renewable Hydrogen’
plan to contribute to achieving climate neutrality. It is expected that it
requires over US$10bn to achieve this road map during the period 2020-2030.
HyDeal
Espana will start production in 2025. The total installation capacity by 2030
will be 9.5GW solar power and 7.4GW electrolysers. ArcelorMittal and Fertiberia
along with other companies have committed to buy 6.6Mt of green hydrogen across
20 years.
Iberdrola inaugurated
green hydrogen plant in Puertollano. The plant will produce up to 3ktpa
renewable hydrogen. Iberdrola plan to invest EUR9bn by 2030 to produce 400ktpa
green hydrogen.
France
The French
government aims to invest over EUR7bn between 2020-2030 for the development of
a low-carbon hydrogen industry.
GravitHy
consortium plans to install 650MW electrolyser to produce 110ktpa hydrogen. The
electrical power needed for the electrolyser will be sourced from wind and
solar. The construction will start in 2024.
The UK
The UK
government aims to develop hydrogen production capacity of 5GW by 2030. The focus
of hydrogen production in UK has been on steam reforming of methane to produce
low carbon hydrogen called as ‘blue hydrogen’.
SSE Thermal
and Equinor are developing hydrogen storage facility at Aldbrough. The expected
capacity will be of 320GWh. The project will be completed by 2028. Similarly, Equinor
to develop 1.8GW blue hydrogen production facility in the same region.