To achieve the goal of carbon neutrality by 2050, societies must reduce their energy consumption across all end-use sectors. Wherever possible, clean energy – including green hydrogen – should be used in the decarbonisation process.

Green hydrogen is particularly relevant in two main sectors:

Transportation – unlike fossil fuels, which have been deployed everywhere indiscriminately, the new energy mix now requires us to ask the question of use and the type of vehicle concerned. We know that hydrogen is an effective solution for a range of uses and heavy and/or intensive mobility profiles that battery-electric vehicles cannot cater for. For example, long ranges, heavy loads or extreme conditions (extreme cold or heat). This includes heavy goods vehicles, light commercial vehicles, buses and coaches etc.

Industry – energy-intensive sectors such as steel, glass, chemicals and electronics are looking to decarbonise their processes. Green hydrogen is a solution for replacing grey hydrogen or fossil fuels such as natural gas, for example.

Different types of hydrogen
Today, 95% of hydrogen is grey; made from fossil fuels (oil, natural gas and coal). This process generates high emissions of CO₂ (for 1 kg of hydrogen produced, up to 11 kg of CO₂ are emitted). Producing hydrogen from fossil fuels merely displaces the problem. In 2020, the consumption of fossil hydrogen amounted to more than 90mn tonnes worldwide (mainly for use in industry).

Blue hydrogen is, in effect, grey hydrogen to which carbon capture and storage (CCS) has been added. It is simply a way of changing nothing. It maintains our dependence on fossil fuels; no one knows how long CO₂ can remain in long-term storage; there is little storage infrastructure in the world, and the cost of developing these technologies is high. At Lhyfe, we argue that investment should continue to be directed towards green rather than blue hydrogen, which does not contribute to reducing fossil fuel consumption. With blue hydrogen, we’d be displacing the problem rather than solving it.

Produced by certain geological formations, white or ‘natural’ hydrogen could be an interesting option, but for the moment it’s in its infancy. We don’t know how to extract this hydrogen, whether there are many deposits, how much extraction will cost, or what the impact of it will be. We must explore this solution, but we can’t wait for it to mature.

We have a clean and mature solution to start decarbonising on a massive scale right now. Green and renewable hydrogen is produced by electrolysis of water and from renewable electricity. The CO₂ emitted by Lhyfe to produce 1 kg of green hydrogen is 0.992 kg, which is 10 times less than for so-called grey hydrogen.

Moreover, Lhyfe has chosen to produce locally and signs long-term power purchase agreements (PPAs) to secure its supply of renewable energy. The company has already signed this kind of PPA with renewable energy producers such as VSB Energies Nouvelles of France, Kallista Energy of France and EDP Renewables of Italy.

At Lhyfe, we argue that investment should continue to be directed towards green rather than blue hydrogen, which does not contribute to reducing fossil fuel consumption.

Europe’s green hydrogen industry
It’s fair to say that in just four years the European green and renewable hydrogen industry has rapidly become established. First in the mobility sector – where all the building blocks in the value chain exist and some are already starting to be industrialised – and second in industry, which is beginning to announce its first large-scale projects, notably in the chemicals sector. The market is being deployed more widely in Europe, particularly in Germany, France, Switzerland, Belgium, Sweden, Spain, the UK and the Netherlands.

At Lhyfe, we have four onshore green and renewable hydrogen production sites installed in France and Germany. We started with 1 MW and then 5 MW sites. Our 5 MW sites are the largest in France. We have several others under construction across Europe, including two 10 MW sites in France and Germany.

We’re also convinced that, in order to produce large quantities of green and renewable hydrogen, we need to produce it offshore. That’s why, in parallel with our onshore sites, we launched Sealhyfe (1 MW), the world’s first offshore hydrogen production pilot, in 2022, and are currently building the HOPE project (10 MW), due to come onstream in 2026 off Ostend, Belgium.

Europe now has all the components it needs to boost the green and renewable hydrogen sector. If we want to achieve our goal of carbon neutrality, we now need clarity, coherence and consistency, and more concretely, we need to stimulate demand. The EU could do this in a structural way, with a massive European programme that would support the acquisition of vehicles, the transformation of industrial processes and the consumption of hydrogen, by covering part of the extra cost.

Such a programme would have to run for a sufficiently long period to give confidence to the market and trigger investment decisions on the part of vehicle buyers and manufacturers.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are strictly those of the author only and are not necessarily given or endorsed by or on behalf of the Energy Institute.

• Further reading: ‘High hopes: Could south-west Europe be the Saudi Arabia of natural hydrogen?’ Hydrogen is an increasingly important component of the energy transition. But where will we get it? The cheapest, cleanest source may turn out to be natural accumulations of hydrogen underground. However, at present, we don’t know whether natural hydrogen fields are large enough, or common enough, to make a significant impact on the developing hydrogen economy, writes Professor Dave Waltham, Department of Earth Sciences, Royal Holloway University London.
• The world’s fifth largest country by land area is preparing to use its abundant natural resources and major renewable energy sector to become the world’s largest producer of green hydrogen. However, with several challenges to overcome, local experts say that the likelihood of Brazil achieving this aim remains difficult to predict.