When the new German government entered office before Christmas, it was announced that they would increase production of renewable energy by 100 TWh per year by 2030 compared to its original target, and double its green hydrogen electrolyser capacity to 10 GW. According to the German National Hydrogen Strategy, this should provide 28 TWh of hydrogen. The strategy estimates that there will be a need for 90-100 TWh of hydrogen by 2030. In order to have enough hydrogen available in the transitional phase, it will be necessary to import primarily green hydrogen. However, an analysis released last autumn by Fraunhofer points out the challenges related to the availability of hydrogen on global import markets, and that solutions for the transport of large quantities of hydrogen are still not mature and will probably not be in place before 2030. In the past month, there have, however, been several reports of Memorandums of Understanding on deliveries of both green and blue hydrogen from countries such as Australia, the UAE, and Norway.

The situation for blue hydrogen has changed somewhat in the last few months. According to DNV and other stakeholders, it is not likely that natural gas will be used for hydrogen production due to uncertainty about future gas deliveries from Russia. In an analysis from Rystad Energy, it is pointed out that the rise in natural gas prices over the last 6 months means that blue hydrogen is now losing out to green hydrogen. Today, natural gas accounts for around 30% of Germany’s energy mix, and is almost exclusively based on imports, and primarily through gas pipelines. Energy loss in the process of converting natural gas into hydrogen is typically 30%.

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