Collated below are key recent international hydrogen reports, which are intended as a useful resource, noting that these documents are ever-changing due to the rapidly evolving global hydrogen industry, and new reports released regularly. Select from the agencies listed below:
Three strategic areas of public policy – energy, industry and trade – are increasingly interwoven. Tensions and trade-offs arise in each of these areas as governments seek to reconcile their commitment to well-functioning markets and cost-effective clean energy transitions, on the one hand, with the need to establish secure, resilient clean technology supply chains, on the other. This involves tough decisions around choosing which industries to support, collaboration with trading partners, and how to prioritise innovation efforts. This 2024 edition of Energy Technology Perspectives (ETP) – the “world’s clean energy technology guidebook” – is designed to support decision-making in these areas. ETP-2024 is the first analysis of its kind to explore the future of manufacturing and trade of clean energy technologies, with granular sectoral detail across supply chains, built on a unique bottom-up dataset and a quantitative assessment of countries’ industrial strategies.
More projects and more final investment decisions, but setbacks persist
Global hydrogen demand reached 97 Mt in 2023, an increase of 2.5% compared to 2022. Demand remains concentrated in refining and the chemical sector, and is principally covered by hydrogen produced from unabated fossil fuels. As in previous years, low-emissions hydrogen played only a marginal role, with production of less than 1 Mt in 2023. However, low-emissions hydrogen production could reach 49 Mtpa by 2030 based on announced projects, almost 30% more than when the Global Hydrogen Review 2023 was released. This strong growth has been mostly driven by electrolysis projects, with announced electrolysis capacity amounting to almost 520 GW. The number of projects that have reached a final investment decision (FID) is also growing: Announced production that has taken FID doubled compared with last year to reach 3.4 Mtpa, representing a fivefold increase on today’s production by 2030. This is split roughly evenly between electrolysis (1.9 Mtpa) and fossil fuels with carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) (1.5 Mtpa).
Investment in electrolysers is driven by higher deployment but also by higher financing costs
Investment in electrolysers is set to increase by close to 140% in 2024 to USD 5 billion. This is mainly because of new capacity additions as well as cost inflation in the sector and resulting increases in equipment prices and financing costs. Most of the electrolyser capacity coming online in the next few years aims to replace existing uses of hydrogen (refining and the chemical industry). These investments are generally perceived as lower risk than generating new potential sources of demand (e.g. mobility and conversion into low-emissions hydrogen-based fuels).
How high-quality carbon credits could accelerate the adoption of low-emissions hydrogen, sustainable aviation fuels and direct air capture
Achieving net zero requires rapid development of technologies such as lowemissions hydrogen, sustainable aviation fuels (SAF), and direct air capture and storage (DACS). The IEA and GenZero report explores how carbon credits can incentivise their deployment.
World hydrogen electrolyser capacity additions grew by 360% in 2023, according to the IEA's new report. The Clean Energy Market Monitor, aims to fill a gap by providing a timely, concise and up-to-date overview of clean energy deployment for 2023 for a selected group of technologies, including hydrogen electrolysers.
Low-emission hydrogen production can grow massively by 2030 but cost challenges are hampering deployment The number of announced projects for low-emission hydrogen production is rapidly expanding. Annual production of low-emission hydrogen could reach 38 Mt in 2030, if all announced projects are realised, although 17 Mt come from projects at early stages of development. The potential production by 2030 from announced projects to date is 50% larger than it was at the time of the release of the IEA’s Global Hydrogen Review 2022. Only 4% of this potential production has at least taken a final investment decision (FID), a doubling since last year in absolute terms (reaching nearly 2 Mt). Of the total, 27 Mt are based on electrolysis and low-emission electricity and 10 Mt on fossil fuels with carbon capture, utilisation and storage.
Hydrogen demand is growing, with positive signals in key applications
Hydrogen demand reached 94 million tonnes (Mt) in 2021, recovering to above pre-pandemic levels (91 Mt in 2019), and containing energy equal to about 2.5% of global final energy consumption. Most of the increase came from traditional uses in refining and industry, though demand for new applications grew to about 40 thousand tonnes (up 60% from 2020, albeit from a low base).
IRENA established the Collaborative Frameworks as platforms for dialogue and co-ordinated action to support the global energy transition. With its nearly universal global membership, IRENA has a unique mandate to bring the global community together to discuss and co-operate on topics of strategic importance.
The World Energy Transitions Outlook outlines a vision for the transition of the energy landscape to reflect the goals of the Paris Agreement, presenting a pathway for limiting global temperature rise to 1.5°C and bringing CO2 emissions to net zero by mid-century.
The report builds on two of IRENA’s key scenarios to capture global progress toward meeting the 1.5°C climate goal.
IRENA’s 1.5°C pathway, set out in the World Energy Transitions Outlook, positions electrification and efficiency as key transition drivers, enabled by renewable energy, clean hydrogen and sustainable biomass. Increasingly, countries are positioning these technological avenues at the centre of their climate action, as well as their economic, energy security and universal access strategies.
Unlike fossil fuels, for which large reserves are concentrated in certain countries and regions, renewable energy resources (solar, wind, geothermal, etc.) are available at a viable scale in every country. The geographical concentration of fossil fuel reserves has made some countries into major producers, while most countries are predominantly importers. Renewable energy, in contrast, can be produced everywhere (although the cost-effectiveness varies by location) and therefore has the potential to dramatically change how and between whom energy is traded. However, until recently there has been no cost-effective way to transport renewable electricity over long distances to link low-cost production sites with demand centres. Suitable transmission lines are rare and costly to construct. The use of hydrogen as an energy carrier could be an answer, enabling renewable energy to be traded across borders in the form of molecules or commodities (such as ammonia).
Green hydrogen is benefiting from a new wave of interest due to its potential to make a significant contribution to meeting climate goals and advancing the energy transition. In response, IRENA has been analysing options for the production and consumption of green hydrogen, along with devising policies to support and accelerate its commercialisation and wide adoption.
Walking the talk: Seven-fold increase in investment for hydrogen projects reaching FID globally within the past four years.
The global hydrogen industry is nascent and facing challenges as it scales, however, looking at the development of the global hydrogen industry since the first publication of Hydrogen Insights in 2021, the progress achieved thanks to the efforts of decision-makers in industry and governments is undeniable.
Hydrogen will play a crucial role in decarbonizing hard-to-abate sectors, enable the at-scale transport of energy to resource constrained regions, and enable a clean and resilient energy system. Its deployment is at an inflection point – on one hand there are tailwinds such as a growing and gradually maturing pipeline of projects and supportive decarbonization regulation. On the other hand, there are headwinds: cost increases, project delays, continued regulatory uncertainty, and higher financing costs.
Hydrogen and its derivatives will play a central role in decarbonization and global trade will be critical for driving uptake. This was the key finding of Global Hydrogen Flows, a joint report of the Hydrogen Council and McKinsey & Company published in 2022. It highlighted the inability of major future hydrogen demand regions, including Europe, Japan, and South Korea, to meet all their demand at affordable costs. Other regions, the report showed, could potentially have excess low-cost supply.
Hydrogen creates stronger links between electric, gaseous and liquid energy flows which bring benefits not captured in levelized cost
The world’s energy system continues to be based on fossil fuels, which are either burned directly, or transformed into electricity. As our energy system decarbonizes to meet the shared goal of limiting global warming, these fuels will be increasingly replaced through electrification. However, sectors which are difficult to electrify will continue to require liquid and gaseous fuels, and these fuels can be produced using hydrogen.
In the emerging global hydrogen economy, robust tradeable certification schemes for hydrogen and derivatives are due to play a key role to:
Enable the implementation of government policies as certification can constitute an integral element of policy measures such as targets, quotas and tax credits;
Evidence their sustainability attributes, such as carbon footprint (CFP) - meaning greenhouse gases (GHG) – as well as the use of land and water, and social impacts – in a reliable and consistent manner internationally;
Create transparency for consumers and enable consumer choice;
Allow consumers to signal demand for hydrogen based on its sustainability credentials;
Create trust between prospective importers and exporters, fostering global, cross-border trade in hydrogen and derivatives based on their sustainability credentials.
The pipeline of hydrogen projects is continuing to grow, but actual deployment is lagging. 680 large-scale project proposals worth USD 240 billion have been put forward, but only about 10% (USD 22 billion) have reached final investment decision (FID). While Europe leads in proposed investments (~30%), China is slightly ahead on actual deployment of electrolyzers (200 MW), while Japan and South Korea are leading in fuel cells (more than half of the world’s 11 GW manufacturing capacity).
Hydrogen is central to reaching net zero emissions because it can abate 80 gigatons of CO2 by 2050
Hydrogen has a central role in helping the world reach net-zero emissions by 2050 and limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Complementing other decarbonization technologies like renewable power, biofuels, or energy efficiency improvements, clean hydrogen (both renewable and low carbon) offers the only long-term, scalable, and cost-effective option for deep decarbonization in sectors such as steel, maritime, aviation, and ammonia. From now through 2050, hydrogen can avoid 80 gigatons (GT) of cumulative CO2 emissions. With annual abatement potential of 7 GT in 2050, hydrogen can contribute 20% of the total abatement needed in 2050.a This requires the use of 660 million metric tons (MT) of renewable and lowcarbon hydrogen in 2050, equivalent to 22%b of global final energy demand.
The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), colloquially known as the bipartisan infrastructure law (BIL), was signed into law by President Joe Biden on November 15, 2021, and provided $1.2 trillion for a range of transportation and infrastructure programs, including significant funding for hydrogen technology development. In total, the IIJA provided $9.5 billion specifically for clean hydrogen programs, with a range of other initiatives in the bill containing opportunities for further support of hydrogen energy, vehicles, infrastructure, and more.
The lack of adequate hydrogen infrastructure is a critical challenge impairing the development of the hydrogen market across Europe. To unlock the potential of hydrogen and ensure European decarbonization targets are fulfilled, infrastructure will have to be developed throughout the continent to connect production to demand centres, enable imports of cheap hydrogen and provide a resilient system through storage capacities.
Hydrogen is happening!
The activities of the hydrogen sector shaping up in Europe and globally are starting to yield results. Projects especially in Europe are mushrooming. However, only 4 percent of them are getting to final investment decision. This shows how important it is to understand the interconnections and interdependencies of different technologies and energy sectors in order to de-risk investments into hydrogen projects.
As the hydrogen era dawns, we are met with enormous potential for a cleaner, more sustain- able future. However, this future hinges on our ability to establish universally applicable and rigorous standards for hydrogen certification. The European Union (EU) is ideally positioned to pioneer this initiative, and this paper is a concerted effort towards providing guidance in this pivotal endeavour.
Climate change is one of the greatest challenges facing the world today and energy systems need to meet the commitments made at the 2015 Paris Agreement now.
It is now widely accepted that hydrogen derived from renewable energy sources will be required as part of decarbonised energy systems, and there is significant momentum building in the renewable and low-carbon hydrogen energy sector around the world.
Just two years after the launch of the European Hydrogen Strategy, hydrogen is now at the forefront of the European energy transition conversation.
2022 has seen many significant policy developments as we strive to create a bona fide hydrogen market. The priority now must be to tie up all remaining loose ends and provide clear regulatory certainty to producers, end-users, and all parts of the value chain.
Russia’s unprecedented military attack on Ukraine has turbocharged the European Union’s (EU) clean energy transition. The European Commission has formulated a bold, common action plan entitled “REPowerEU” to achieve independence from Russian gas well before the end of this decade. This action plan consists of three-pillars that will increase the resilience of the EU-wide energy system.
We cannot achieve climate neutrality without hydrogen
The past year has seen ever-increasing momentum for the hydrogen industry in Europe. From being viewed as an innovative niche technology, hydrogen has become a key pillar in the European Union’s (EU) energy and climate policy and is recognised as a key enabler in the EU’s efforts to transition to a climate-neutral society by 2050.
The Global Standard for Green Hydrogen and Green Hydrogen Derivatives including Green Ammonia.
Unlocking Green Hydrogen’s vast potential
The central importance of green hydrogen in the transition to net zero is clearer than ever. Every week brings another wave of green hydrogen announcements: new national strategies, government incentives, industry commitments and collaboration, research insights and advocacy.
