Outlook 2024: Progress with growing pains – Developing a global hydrogen ecosystem

A competitive pricing structure, collaboration between public and private sectors and supportive policies all required to justify hydrogen development

Hydrogen is a key tool in decarbonising the world’s energy sector. It’s a fuel for the ‘hard-to-abate’ industrial sectors and for activities that cannot be readily electrified such as aviation, long-haul freight and international shipping. However, as we’re all aware, the cost of using it as an energy source is high—and in Europe, particularly, this is one of the main impediments to large-scale deployment. Since European electricity prices are driven by the cost of gas, the cost of carbon-free hydrogen produced by electrolysis has risen over the past two years. Fossil fuels are relatively cheap compared to hydrogen, but we pay the costs of their carbon emissions and subsequent effects on the