Page 44 - European Energy Innovation magazine - spring 2023 edition

Spring 2023 European Energy Innovation
44 HYDROGEN

The hydrogen revolution is

no solo effort – the need for

hydrogen partnerships

By Dr. Thomas Hillig, Managing Director, THEnergy

he shift towards a green This money can be for research German government supports the
hydrogen economy is and development, education and purchase of hydrogen on the world
expensive – experts expect training, harmonisation of legislation, market from non-EU countries at the
Tinvestments of more or specific projects and scaling up lowest price with auctions via 10-year
than a dozen of trillion euros from programmes. For the latter, Germany purchase agreements. With a second
now to 2050. It is obvious that no proposes and interesting approach: auction series the hydrogen is then
country in the world can handle this double-sided auctions for green sold to the highest bidder within the
unprecedented challenge by itself. hydrogen and hydrogen derivatives. EU – at a lower price and on the
The need for cooperation manifests basis of shorter-term contracts.
itself more and more often in An auction many hydrogen players
hydrogen partnerships that can cover won’t be able to resist The price difference will be
research, development, regulation, In December, Germany launched compensated by an H2 Global
pilot projects or even agreements a €900 million support of auction investment vehicle. H2 Global is
about traded hydrogen volume. schemes for green hydrogen and a foundation set up by mainly
power-to-X (PtX) imports. The German players such as Siemens
The Nordics have the Nordic
Hydrogen Partnership. UK and
South Africa launched a hydrogen
cooperation last December.
Germany cannot get enough of
hydrogen partnerships and initiated
them amongst others with Angola,
Arabia, Australia, Canada, Chile,
Japan, Namibia, Nigeria and South
Africa. The list is long and could be
continued: hydrogen partnerships are
on everyone’s lips.

Mere partnership announcements
are often not worth the paper they
are written on
As we all know from our private lives,
a partnership can mean pretty much
anything. Just the announcement
of a partnership often is not worth
the paper it is written on. Hydrogen
partnerships become interesting as
soon as money is put on the table
– particularly true if the partnership
is closed between uneven partners:
richer and poorer countries, potential
exporting and importing countries.

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