Wed, Feb 12 2025 12 February, 2025

Most European hydrogen projects show very little progress: report

Europe’s ambitions for a continent-wide hydrogen network are “impractical and unrealistic,” according to a new report. The danger is that hydrogen provides cover for the expansion of the gas system.

Industrial facilities in the port of Barcelona, Spain (Photo: Adobe Stock/peresanz)

Nearly all of the proposed hydrogen projects meant to decarbonise Europes energy system are not progressing, raising the risk that new investments instead flow into gas infrastructure that locks in polluting industries and undermines the continents energy transition, according to a new report.

Green hydrogen — hydrogen produced from renewable energy — has a role to play in decarbonising the energy system, although most experts argue that it should be confined to a narrow set of applications and to sectors where electrification is difficult.

But the European Union has embraced a broader vision for the application of hydrogen, including overhauling the existing gas system so that it can use hydrogen instead of gas. European governments have even argued that investment in new gas infrastructure need not be viewed as damaging to climate action because such infrastructure — pipelines, power plants, and LNG import terminals — could either be built so that they use a blend of hydrogen immediately, or that they will come hydrogen-ready” and can be switched over from gas to hydrogen at some point in the future. These claims dovetail with the gas industrys goals of maintaining and expanding their networks indefinitely.

However, despite the fanfare, nearly all of the proposed hydrogen projects are struggling to gain commercial momentum, according to a new report from Global Energy Monitor, a California-based energy research organisation.

The report looks at Europes emerging hydrogen network, which includes the possibility of 96 power plants representing 44.6 gigawatts of capacity, twelve projects to expand or convert LNG import terminals to hydrogen, and 323 pipeline projects that would transport hydrogen across 50,000 km.

The effort involves dozens of companies — across many countries — with the intention of largely replicating or replacing much of the existing spiderweb of gas pipelines, power plants, and import facilities.

But very little of that is actually moving forward. In fact, most projects are stuck in their infancy. Many projects lack key information, such as start dates and blending percentages. No import terminal capable of handling hydrogen, or a hydrogen derivative such as ammonia, has begun construction. The vast majority of power plant projects do not have financing, nor do they have contracts for the hydrogen supply itself. And only a single hydrogen pipeline is under active development.

Some of these definitely could move forward, but at this point things are pretty early. There are a lot of missing details, a lot of cases where these projects dont have commitments or much lined up yet to prove that they can move forward,” Rob Rozansky, project manager at Global Energy Monitor and author of the report, told Gas Outlook.

Importantly, the whole green hydrogen supply industry seems to be lagging behind, with not nearly enough being produced to keep up with plants at this scale.”

There are multiple reasons for the weak interest in building out a vast continent-wide hydrogen system, despite heavy political support. Green hydrogen is very expensive, even costlier than grey hydrogen, which itself is more expensive than natural gas. There is also a long list of technical challenges. Hydrogen can embrittle pipelines, increasing leaks and explosion risks. Retrofitting pipelines so that they can safely handle hydrogen may mean replacing entire lines, a costly investment. 

Companies will talk about retrofitting or repurposing pipelines, but it’s going to be more difficult than they suggest,” Rozansky said.

There is also a tremendous energy loss from producing hydrogen or some derivative like ammonia from renewable energy, moving it a long distance by pipeline or by ship, and then putting it into the distribution system. Ammonia would then need to be cracked so that it can be transformed back into hydrogen again, in order to be blended or burned.

For many applications, it makes no economic or technical sense to run through all of these stages, each of which incurs energy loss, especially when renewable energy can be deployed in the first place. Why blend in costly green hydrogen, produced in Canada, to heat a building in Germany, when you can simply remove the gas lines and install a heat pump instead?

A hydrogen network of this scale, with power production as a major end use, is impractical and unrealistic as a decarbonization strategy,” the report said.

Predatory delay”

From a climate perspective, the danger is that the promise of hydrogen paves the way for investment to flow into gas infrastructure, which, once built, could technically operate for many decades. The hydrogen-ready” marketing may create the political support that moves a gas project forward, even if the hydrogen component falls off at a later stage. Or, in the case of existing gas infrastructure, the promise to switch over to hydrogen in the distant future risks prolonging climate pollution, delaying the transition to renewables.

They know that if we ever get serious about decarbonisation, we have to stop using their product and their assets become liabilities with an abandonment cost,” said Paul Martin, a chemical engineer and consultant at Spitfire Research Inc., based in Toronto, referring to the gas industry. He reviewed the Global Energy Monitor report, and dismissed the notion that such a sprawling network of hydrogen was economically feasible.

It’s a clear case of predatory delay,” he said, referring to the gas industrys attempt to stave off the energy transition with promises of a green alternative that preserves their existing infrastructure and allows them to expand.

Martin has published extensive research on hydrogen, and his August 2024 peer-reviewed paper looked at the extensive challenges when repurposing gas infrastructure for hydrogen.

He described green hydrogen as the champagne” of the energy transition — very expensive and only to be used in limited circumstances.

Blending hydrogen into the gas mix for heating buildings may be technically feasible, at great effort and enormous cost, but even then, it would only yield a very small climate benefit.

And thats all to pretend that the gas infrastructure has value post-decarbonization when it plainly doesnt,” Martin said.

Global Energy Monitor noted that some gas pipeline projects that fell by the wayside have been revived and repackaged as hydrogen pipelines. For instance, the H2MED pipeline would run from Spain to France, and effectively connect the Iberian Peninsula with northwestern Europe. It is a key component in Spains ambitions to become a green hydrogen hub. The project is the latest iteration of the now-defunct MidCat pipeline, a gas pipeline that never went forward. Some analysts fear that it is a gas pipeline in disguise, and could revert to shipping gas if hydrogen supplies fail to materialise.

A similar proposed hydrogen pipeline that would connect Algeria to Italy resembles a gas pipeline that follows a similar route, but was previously shelved.

Despite political backing, there are few signs that Europes big bet on green hydrogen is paying off.

Europes hydrogen infrastructure plans are still relatively immature, and only a fraction of these projects may ultimately materialize,” the report said.

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