Siemens Gamesa has launched an industry white paper that outlines how to deliver cost-competitive green hydrogen by 2030 from onshore wind and by 2035 from offshore wind.
The report – 'Unlocking the Green Hydrogen Revolution' – calls for a joined-up approach to encouraging both market demand and scaling production, highlighting four key requirements to deliver low-cost green hydrogen within the next decade.
Firstly, it recommends a drastic increase in the capacity of renewables because the green hydrogen revolution relies on this.
It said the world will need up to 6000GW of new installed renewable energy capacity by 2050, up from 2800GW today to generate the expected demand for hydrogen of 500 million tonnes, which has been estimated by the Hydrogen Council.
A cost-effective demand-side market for green hydrogen needs to be created to drive down the costs of equipment, infrastructure and day-to-day operating costs.
Currently, the main operating cost for green hydrogen production is powering the electrolyzers, so a decrease in energy costs lowers the cost of the hydrogen and increases demand.
In addition, the supply chain needs to be developed as no one provider can own the entire production and distribution process.
At the moment, initiatives are fragmented, and therefore costly, meaning renewable energy companies, electrolyzer manufacturers, network providers and water treatment specialists need to work together to build a resilient supply chain.
Finally, the right infrastructure in terms of logistics, storage and distribution needs to be built.
There needs to be investment in hydrogen pipeline networks to unlock the potential of green hydrogen, the white paper concludes.
Siemens Gamesa chief executive Andreas Nauen (pictured) said: "When it comes to green hydrogen, we need to act now.
"It took three decades for wind and solar to reach grid parity with fossil fuels, and we cannot afford to wait that long for green hydrogen to reach price parity with fossil-based hydrogen.
"Wind will play a powerful role in accelerating the production of green hydrogen, which is vital to decarbonizing our economy.
"Therefore, to unlock the potential of green hydrogen, we need to drive down costs quickly.
"To do this, we need a consensus between industry, policymakers and investors to rapidly develop the demand-side market, build the supply chain and roll out the necessary infrastructure."
