Sarah Howell, Vice President of Gastech – the leading international expo for natural gas, LNG, hydrogen, and low-carbon solutions, which returns to Milan in September for its 50th anniversary edition – shares her thoughts on the hydrogen industry, as the sector strives to transition from strategy to delivery.

Earlier this month, Gastech and Energy Connects hosted a webinar bringing together senior executives from Baker Hughes, Siemens Energy, Technip Energies and McKinsey & Company to discuss the key challenges shaping the hydrogen industry. Attended by over 1000 executives and professionals from around the world, the panel surveyed the changes taking place in the industry, and the opportunities on the horizon.

Hydrogen investment reaches $160bn since COP26

Over the last six months, investment in hydrogen has taken off. According to moderator Bernd Heid, Senior Partner at McKinsey, since last year’s COP26 the number of hydrogen investments has increased by 50 per cent, reaching US$160bn worldwide. With more than 520 projects in train, and roughly half of these at a mature stage, momentum appears to have swung behind hydrogen as a major technology in the global energy transition.

As our panellists outlined, one of the key obstacles for hydrogen has been affordability – something that has become less of an issue over time due to the increase in cheap renewable power and carbon capture projects. As a result, we could well see hydrogen become competitive with other renewable technologies, and even conventional fuels.

Australia, India and MENA touted as future hydrogen hubs

Another major topic of discussion was where these hydrogen projects are developing. Dr Stefan Diezinger, Head of Sustainable Energy Systems at Siemens Energy, suggested that hydrocarbon economies will be in a strong position to ramp up hydrogen production because they already have the abundance of energy required to quickly do so. Australia, India, and the MENA region were all touted as future hydrogen hubs.

Alessandro Bresciani – Senior Vice President, Climate Technology Solutions at Baker Hughes – argued that we might also see the approach to hydrogen development change. He suggested that Europe might increasingly act collectively as a single hydrogen terminal to reduce its infrastructure and production costs, something already in development under the new EU Energy Platform.

Gastech 2022 to set out roadmap for hydrogen’s development

The webinar showed that while there is plenty of debate around how the global hydrogen market will develop, the industry is taking hydrogen more seriously than ever before.

The future of hydrogen will be a major component of this year’s Gastech Hydrogen event in Milan, 5-8 September. Bringing together policymakers and energy leaders from around the world, Gastech will be the major forum for the industry to take stock of the changes made so far and set out a roadmap for hydrogen’s development.

The event will be held at Fiera Milano in Milan, Italy, from 5–8 September. To find out more about the conference, visit our website: www.gastechevent.com/the-gastech-exhibition/gastech-hydrogen