Outlook 2024: Progress with growing pains – Developing a global hydrogen ecosystem
A competitive pricing structure, collaboration between public and private sectors and supportive policies all required to justify hydrogen development
Hydrogen is a key tool in decarbonising the world’s energy sector. It’s a fuel for the ‘hard-to-abate’ industrial sectors and for activities that cannot be readily electrified such as aviation, long-haul freight and international shipping. However, as we’re all aware, the cost of using it as an energy source is high—and in Europe, particularly, this is one of the main impediments to large-scale deployment. Since European electricity prices are driven by the cost of gas, the cost of carbon-free hydrogen produced by electrolysis has risen over the past two years. Fossil fuels are relatively cheap compared to hydrogen, but we pay the costs of their carbon emissions and subsequent effects on the
Also in this section
13 May 2025
Existing specifications have been a good starting point for standardisation of hydrogen quality, but they need rethinking—a 99.5 mol-% specification is a promising candidate
12 May 2025
The sector needs a standard covering hydrogen quality for the entire value chain, but no single hydrogen quality covers the needs of all stakeholders
9 May 2025
Hydrogen quality is an increasingly important area for the sector. Though well-established standards are in place, they typically cover only certain parts of assets and value chain
6 May 2025
European Commission backs hydrogen as best option to decarbonise steel sector, but questions remain over technology choices and funding
