Outlook 2022: Financing the hydrogen transition

Hydrogen could account for about 18pc of world energy demand by 2050, but what is needed for this clean energy solution to become a bankable model?

Hydrogen has been touted as a clean energy solution for decades, but the costs of production have always presented a barrier to uptake compared with other energy carriers. Now, as more countries sign up to net-zero carbon emission targets, there is a renewed focus on the potential for low-carbon production of hydrogen to facilitate these ambitions, particularly in sectors traditionally seen as challenging to decarbonise. Arguably the biggest barrier to the uptake of low-carbon hydrogen is still its cost not only relative to traditional sources of hydrogen (e.g. from steam methane reformation) but also as an alternative to counterfactual fuels (e.g. coal, diesel, heavy fuel oil and aviation f