I think its high time we grapple with the fact that the target setting process for the EU's 2030 hydrogen targets last year was driven by hydrogen hysteria. The numbers are complete nonsense with no sound analytical basis whatsoever.
Nowhere was 20 Mt of H2 found to be a realistic goal! Lets start with the European Commission's own modelling for REPowerEU, which yields only 16 Mt in 2030 based largely on external modelling assumptions driven by the political target itself.
eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/…
So how does the Commission justify a 20 Mt target based on a modelling exercise that yields only 16 Mt. Well they simply round up 20 Mt by adding 4 Mt on top🧐! I don't think that's how an impact assessment is supposed to work.
Here's another estimate by the gas industry released after the targets were set that doesn't even deliver 20 Mt of hydrogen demand when including the UK and Norway! I guess we need to round up to 5.3 Mt of ammonia imports now?
ehb.eu/page/publicati…
And the 20 Mt are certainly far higher than anything research contracted by the gas industry was showing before the EU Green Deal and REPowerEU. This reference point 'Gas for Climate' paper had only 135 TWh of hydrogen supply in 2030, roughly 4 Mt of H2.
gasforclimate2050.eu/publications/
This 'ambitious' scenario by Hydrogen Europe from 2020 did indeed have 665 TWh (20 Mt) of demand in 2030. However the 20 Mt are not just based on clean H2 (the subject of the target), but also include existing, dirty fossil-based conventional hydrogen.
waterstofnet.eu/en/news/hydrog…
This is made clear from the 2x40GW electrolyzer target (40 GW domestic, 40 GW abroad) accompanying the paper which yields AT MOST 12 Mt of hydrogen, and only if you assume high efficiency and utilization rates of 75% and 8000 full load hours implying lots of dirty grid power.
It is also based on an assessment of current H2 demand from 2019 that includes the UK, but also counts hydrogen produced as a by-product towards current hydrogen demand, resulting in an estimate of current hydrogen demand of 339 TWh or around 10 Mt today.
op.europa.eu/en/publication…
More recent estimates for the EU27, however, put this demand closer to 8 Mt. And the hydrogen that is actually produced 'on purpose' for dedicated H2 production that would be displaced by renewable hydrogen is probably closer to 150 TWh or 4.5 Mt.
In other words this analysis is clearly not at all suitable for setting a political renewable and low-carbon hydrogen target for domestic production or imports! Nonetheless, to the best of my knowledge it has served as the key basis for setting the EU's 20 Mt hydrogen targets.
Where does this leave us? Well, our hydrogen targets are massively inflated and go well beyond any reasonable volumes that can or should be delivered by 2030 given the numerous opportunity costs, especially with regards to direct electrification.
The European Commission itself estimates that the 10 Mt target would require some 500-550 TWh of renewable electricity. That's almost as much electricity as was produced from wind and solar combined last year (623 TWh). ec.europa.eu/commission/pre…
While clean hydrogen will need to be scaled significantly in the decades to come, the targets set last year are far more appropriate for 2040 than 2030, and probably vastly overestimate the potential for H2 imports vs domestic production. Everything points to the need for a redo!
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