L R AS Published on Tuesday 5 April 2022 - n° 400 - Categories:hydrogen
What can be done with the green hydrogen produced?
For the Director General of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), public support and policies will be essential to overcome the challenge of creating a hydrogen economy in the absence of demand.
However, "We are not on the right track to stop climate change and we need to be very aggressive at this stage."
At a symposium in Berlin, politicians, stakeholders and analysts all agreed that there is no going back to old mindsets and conventional approaches to energy supply.
For the German Economics Minister, a joint European effort is needed to reduce energy dependence on Russia, although he admitted that this will not be easy to achieve. He stressed the high costs that German households and businesses could be forced to face in the near future. "We need to develop renewable energy and bring renewable energy manufacturing back to Europe, even if it will be more expensive."
For IRENA's director, "hydrogen producers are all ready, but demand is still too low. The problem is that large energy consumers who want to switch from one fuel to another have to adapt their infrastructures, and this is probably not the right time to add these costs. If we want to accelerate this process, policymakers will need to take the right steps."
According to IRENA, "We need electricity grids capable of absorbing the enormous potential we have. For example, in Northern Europe we could add huge amounts of wind power immediately, but we don't have enough grid capacity. Improving and building infrastructure is one of our biggest tasks. Inevitably, the market will select the cheapest sources of energy production. The problem is how quickly this can happen. Once we have closed the gap between several sectors and the cheapest options, we will see an unprecedented deployment of renewable and green hydrogen. For this to happen, it is crucial to create a demand for hydrogen and encourage businesses to convert their energy supply to this clean fuel."
PV Magazine of 31 March 2022
