Promising Developments Amid Realistic Challenges in the Green Hydrogen Sector
Green Hydrogen Organisation - GH2
Dramatically accelerate the production and utilisation of green hydrogen across a range of sectors globally.
In our last wrap, we shared our concerns over the green hydrogen sector’s ability to meet ambitious targets, fearing that slow project progress and bad use cases might hinder our goals. Amid these sobering times, we must celebrate progress, and this week we have seen numerous projects gaining approval and a further slew of MoUs. While this surge in activity is encouraging, it’s crucial to ground our optimism in realism. The challenge now lies in ensuring these projects are not only initiated but also successfully executed.?
The past week has brought noteworthy progress in the green hydrogen sector, especially within the European Union. Four major Final Investment Decisions (FIDs) were announced, including BP's 'industrial scale’ green hydrogen plant in its Castellon refinery in Spain, TotalEnergies' 350MW OranjeWind project in the Netherlands, Shell's 100MW Refhyne 2 project, also in the Netherlands, and EWE's 280MW Clean Hydrogen Coastline – Electrolysis East Frisia (CHC-EEF) project in Germany. ?
Beyond these FIDs, Spain has made notable progress with the recent announcements from the government concerning the preliminary approval for the construction of the Spanish section the H2Med pipeline and the release of the rules and criteria for the EUR 1.2bn hydrogen subsidy programme which was cleared by the European Commission last week. In addition, Tunisia has signed a further six Memorandums of Understanding (MOUs) and bp bought 49% stake in gigawatt-scale Hyport Duqm green hydrogen project in Oman reflecting a growing commitment to green hydrogen development in the Mediterranean and Middle East.?
A key component of reaching FID revolves around securing binding offtake agreements, which are crucial for projects to be financially viable. Many of these new FIDs focus on replacing grey hydrogen with green hydrogen in the refining sector, which are important low hanging fruit. Indeed, due to strict mandates such as the Emissions Trading System and the Renewable Energy Directive, refineries are willing to pay for green hydrogen. However, for other sectors concerned by mandates (e.g. ETS, RED, CBAM) such as maritime fuel, steel and fertilisers, barriers to switching to low carbon hydrogen remain somewhat prohibitive.
For example, while the maritime sector needs to decarbonise its fuel supply through green ammonia, safety and infrastructure (bunkering) challenges remain in addition to a green premium remaining. Regulatory uncertainty around the national implementation of RED III is surely slowing down the adoption of new low carbon fuels. ?
Upcoming Events
The Venice Hydrogen Forum, organized jointly by GH2 and Venice Sustainability Foundation is a ministerial and CEO-level international meeting on the transport, offtake and project finance of hydrogen and its derivatives across the Mediterranean. It will focus on the connection between European hydrogen infrastructure and major green hydrogen production centres in North Africa and the Middle East.
It is designed as a semi-retreat for high-level decision makers to push the needle on agreements and policies to develop cross-Mediterranean hydrogen trade which is urgently needed and ensure local value creation wherever green hydrogen is produced.
Check out the updated agenda here
Find out more here on how to participate.
领英推荐
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ??? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
On Wednesday?we successfully hosted an online introductory session for the "Green Hydrogen Policy Accelerator Training Course." The event brought together over 40 government officials from Africa and Latin America, setting the stage for our upcoming in-person course in Cairo, Egypt, in two weeks.
The Green Hydrogen Policy Accelerator Course, organised jointly by the Green Hydrogen Organisation, International Solar Alliance , and Nile University will take place in Cairo, Egypt, from 18-23 August 2024.?
Through this course, we aim to create an opportunity to build a network of officials and other stakeholders to learn from each other to advance the green hydrogen ecosystem.?This course will be one of the first activities of our newly launched GH2 Cairo Centre of Excellence based at Nile University.?
Don’t miss our friends at the SASHA Coalition ’s webinar next week, on Wed 7th Aug at 14:00 CEST!
Shipping and aviation are two of the sectors that will most need green hydrogen to decarbonise. Join SASHA on Wednesday 7th Aug at 14:00 CEST for a unique opportunity to catch leading industry and policy experts discussing the importance of green hydrogen for decarbonising shipping and aviation.