rotterdam

Spring 2025 stocktake – difficult times but the green hydrogen economy is coming

While it is disappointing to see a number of green hydrogen projects being cancelled, mothballed or slowed down, we are also seeing a lot of good progress in 2025. Maybe we don’t need as much hydrogen as we forecast a couple of years ago. But we still need lots of it across a wide variety of industries. The International Energy Agency forecast in 2023 that we would need 430 million tonnes of hydrogen per annum by 2050. If we conservatively say that we will need 200 million tonnes of hydrogen by mid-century, we still need investments in the order of USD 6.5 trillion to get there (see box).

Estimating the investment needed in Green Hydrogen 

Let’s assume a conversative target of 200 million tonnes of green hydrogen per annum by 2050.  

This would require 2125 GW of electrolysers using 9350 TWh of renewable electricity.  

This in turn would require a minimum of 1070 GW of renewable electricity firmed with batteries (or larger amounts of renewables with lower capacity factors). 

UAE’s Masdar recently announced a USD $6 billion project to deliver 1 GW of renewable power using solar and batteries to provide uninterruptible electricity supply. (see Reuters).  

Of course costs will vary in different countries (and decline in many cases as greater efficiencies are achieved), but 1070 times US$6 billion is US$ 6.5 trillion.  

It is not going to be “blue before green” (with the possible exception of the United States). It is high time lazy speculations are grounded in the fact: we currently have almost no production of credible blue hydrogen with genuinely low carbon emissions. Maybe we will get some good blue projects, but it is likely to take time and be much more expensive than predicted. The fact that the civil engineering required for carbon capture is not falling in price or getting cheaper is just one of many reasons why blue is not likely to scale faster than green.  

Talking of blue hydrogen, we at GH2 have been working with a group of companies on getting a better understanding of the pricing of blue and green hydrogen. We will soon share our detailed findings, but a key finding is the disconnect between nuanced analysis and conventional wisdom. General references in the media and on the conference circuit treat blue hydrogen as if it is a proven and commonly traded commodity. It is not. There are a very few functioning blue hydrogen projects, and none that achieve the emission reductions that are needed. The intelligence and price providers overall use sound and solid methodologies, in most cases referring to good quality blue hydrogen, with autothermal reformation, low methane leakage and near perfect storage. But these price forecasts assume near perfect execution, using a technology that has a strong track record of failure. In the translation of excel sheets to headlines, important definitions, assumptions and caveats get lost. We need to address the often-misleading narratives on costs, price, technology readiness, and emissions reduction potential. 

It is sad that the 45V tax credit in the United States looks likely to be cancelled. When the tax credits were announced in 2022, there were high hopes that this would catapult the US into green hydrogen leadership. The years spent debating the finer points on the eligibility criteria instead created huge uncertainty for project developers and customers. In China, the government is doing the opposite in its continued enabling of the renewable energy economy. If the government of the United States wanted to make sure that companies with strong links to China come to dominate the global renewable energy supply chain, you couldn’t have designed a better strategy. To drive home the stark difference in American and Chinese policy choices, Carbon Brief this week published a report suggesting that Chinese CO2 emissions have peaked, driven by the growth its renewable energy capacity.  

On the more positive side, prices appear to be falling, the green delta is closing. From India we got the news this week that the winning bid in a tender has agreed to sell green hydrogen for 4.65 USD/kg. Green ammonia prices range from 700 to 1400 USD per tonne, although we hear increasingly loud market signals suggesting prices consistently below 700 USD and competing directly with grey ammonia in some markets.  
 
The EU must now hold its course. As we wrote last week, it is critical that the forthcoming rules defining so called Low Carbon Hydrogen do not open the floodgates to blue hydrogen with significant associated emissions. If the EU were to define fossil hydrogen with high upstream emissions as low carbon, it would dent the credibility of the EU, the reputation of hydrogen and result in a slower transition. 
 
It is also critical that the EU holds its own member states to account in implementing agreed mandates for green hydrogen. It is up to the governments of the individual countries to decide how they wish to make sure that 42% of the hydrogen used in industry is renewable by 2030. These kinds of mandates are precisely what is required to drive early demand, make our industry scale up and drive down costs. It was welcome to see the proposal from the French Government this week, suggesting a national target for green hydrogen and its derivatives to make up 1.5% of transport fuel by 2030 (higher than the 1% required under RED III). 

GH2 at the World Hydrogen Summit | Rotterdam, 20–21 May 2025 
 

Tuesday, 20 May 2025 
 

11:00 – 12:35📌 Port 4, Level 3 

Developments in the EU Hydrogen Policy Landscape to Promote International Partnerships for Green Hydrogen Trade 
Jonas Moberg (CEO, GH2) moderating

Featuring: ReNew, ACME Cleantech, Avaada, Sembcorp, Thyssenkrupp Nucera 

  • Latest EU policies under RED III and RFNBO 

  • Certification and traceability implications for green hydrogen imports 

  • Aligning Indian projects with EU compliance  
     

14:00 – 15:30📌 Port 4, Level 3 

High-Level Roundtable on Policy & Regulations  
Joe Williams (Deputy CEO, GH2) speaking

Participants include: MNRE, SECI, ReNew, ACME, CertifHy, Bureau Veritas, Hydrogen Europe 

  • Interoperability of India’s Green Hydrogen Certification Scheme and EU’s RED III/RFNBO 

  • Regulatory pathways and alignment between certifiers and developers 
     

Wednesday, 21 May 2025
 

10:30 – 12:00 📌 Port 4, Level 3 

Green and Blue Ammonia Pricing – GH2 x Argus Media 
Jonas Moberg (CEO, GH2) and Joe Williams (Deputy CEO, GH2) speaking 

Speakers include Tim Hard (Argus Media), Frank Yu (Envision Energy), Barry Lavery (ReNew), Nishaanth Balashanmugam (GH2 India), Kamlesh Parida (Fortescue) 

  • Presentation of GH2’s report “The Real Price and Quality of Blue Hydrogen” 

  • Methodologies used by Argus Media for pricing low-carbon ammonia 
     

15:00 – 16:30 📌 Room 10A, Dock 10 

ADSW Roundtable: Structuring Bankable Green Hydrogen Projects 
Jonas Moberg (CEO, GH2) speaking 

  • Financing models for green hydrogen projects 

  • Risk allocation across technology providers, developers, and investors 

  • Regulatory and contractual enablers for bankability 


Get in touch if you would like to meet in Rotterdam! 
 

Jonas Moberg

CEO, GH2