(Credit: Pixabay)The Green Hydrogen Catapult (GHC), a coalition of industry leaders in developing the clean fuel, is upping its commitment to commission electrolyzers used to produce the gas from 25 GW to 45 GW by 2027.
The coalition says the effort will keep the price below $2 per kilogram of green hydrogen, which will allow the clean fuel to be cost effective in the short term. The GHC’s original goal for the electrolyzer output, which is to be developed with secured financing, was made late in 2020 when the group was formed.
The GHC also is seeking industry and government leaders to accelerate green hydrogen adoption by continually updating targets as opposed to keeping with longer 2030 goals, as well as investing in infrastructure for green hydrogen and clean energy. The coalition wants to create equal market conditions for all fuels to allow for fair competition in energy markets.
Additionally, the GHC wants to incentives to be made available to encourage heavy industry to adopt green hydrogen.
Electrolyzers use electricity to split water into hydrogen and oxygen and are a leading technology for synthesizing zero-carbon hydrogen fuel using renewable energy. Green hydrogen is considered essential to decarbonizing the heavy industry sectors such as steel, shipping and aviation, the coalition says.
The International Energy Agency says worldwide use of electrolyzers has doubled over the past five years, with 500 more projects currently in some form of production. A report by Bloomberg says the new GHC goal represents a huge increase in the use of electrolyzers that analysts at BloombergNEF expected to be installed this year, which they predicted to come in around 400 MW.
The steel industry may be the greatest benefactor of the technology, as it has growing pressure to improve on its emissions output. Seven European steel companies said in a report by Industry Tracker earlier this year that they were using green hydrogen and creating supply chains to increase their use of the gas.
H2 Green Steel CEO Henrik Henriksson, whose company is part of the GHC, says he already "sees demand for our green steel product growing faster than we can build out our commercial production assets."
Green hydrogen’s use is ramping up across other industries as well and its implementation has been seen from driving clean energy microgrids to helping produce aluminum cans.
The GHC is a global initiative organized with the support of the UN High Level Champions for Global Climate Action and hosted by RMI. It is led by a group of companies seeking to accelerate green hydrogen adoption and members include ACWA Power, CWP Global, Fortescue Future Industries, H2 Green Steel, Iberdrola, Mærsk Mc-Kinney Møller Center for Zero Carbon Shipping, Snam, Yara and Ørsted.
