Hydrogen is considered one of the energy sources of the future. A current analysis shows where Germany is on the path to a “green” hydrogen economy. According to this, only a few plants for the production of hydrogen are currently under construction or in operation; most projects are still being planned or have even been rejected. “Green” hydrogen competes not only with fossil fuels, but also with “gray” hydrogen as well as solar and wind energy. The researchers believe it is very unlikely that the federal government will achieve the goals of its National Hydrogen Strategy with the technologies and financial resources currently available.
Hydrogen (H2) is part of the energy transition with the aim of moving away from climate-damaging fossil raw materials such as natural gas or gasoline towards renewable and sustainable energy sources. In its National Hydrogen Strategy in 2020, Germany set out, among other things, to build electrolysis plants to produce hydrogen with an output of ten gigawatts by 2030. In it, water is broken down into hydrogen and oxygen using electricity. These systems will be powered by electricity from renewable energy sources such as wind or solar.
So far, hydrogen has been produced primarily from natural gas, which produces CO₂ emissions, and then used to produce ammonia and fuels. This “gray” hydrogen is to be replaced by “green” hydrogen in the long term. In addition, an energy network over 11,000 kilometers long is to be built by 2032, connecting all major hydrogen producers with all major consumers, according to the plan of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).
Where does Germany stand when it comes to “green” hydrogen?
A team led by Benedikt Walker from the University of Bonn has now taken a closer look at the status quo of the German hydrogen economy. The researchers determined where facilities for producing hydrogen through electrolysis are already located and where more are planned. They also checked which companies need and buy the hydrogen and which research institutes are working on cheaper hydrogen technologies. Walker and his colleagues summarized the data in maps of Germany, which are available online and are partly interactive.
The maps show that “green” hydrogen will be produced primarily in northern Germany in the near future. Most of the large electrolysis plants are planned there because there are also large wind and solar systems there. Since less energy is required in the north than in the south and since the electricity produced in the north cannot be transported to southern Germany due to network bottlenecks, there is a surplus of wind and solar energy in the north that can be used for the climate-neutral production of hydrogen . Smaller systems for the production of hydrogen, so-called electrolyzers, are planned throughout Germany. However, according to the researchers, it is questionable whether these will be able to compete in the long term.
However, the green hydrogen produced in the small and large plants will probably only be used in industries in which electricity from renewable energies cannot be used directly, for example in the production of steel or chemicals, the team reports. In order to bridge times without wind and sun for other industries, the construction of large caverns in which hydrogen can be stored is also planned. Locations are planned where natural gas was stored underground in the past.
Lots of plans, little achieved
However, most industrial plants for producing and storing green hydrogen are still a thing of the future. Some plans were even canceled again, causing investors to withdraw and “the euphoria surrounding green hydrogen has now dissipated,” according to Walker and his colleagues. But at least “a handful of projects for the production of green hydrogen on an industrial scale” are already under construction or in operation, according to the team. The two largest systems to date are in Wesseling near Cologne and in Lingen in Emsland. There is currently only a draft for the planned hydrogen pipeline network, which the federal government approved in October 2024.
Projects for the production of hydrogen derivatives such as ammonia, methanol and synthetic fuels – so-called eFuels – abroad are also being planned. These should then be imported to Germany via the North and Baltic Sea ports and used primarily to power ships and aircraft that cannot be operated directly with wind or solar power. “However, such export-oriented projects take years to plan and build, making them unlikely to be operational before 2030,” the team reports.
A question of money
In order to achieve the goals of the German hydrogen strategy, the federal government has made over ten billion euros available for the development of hydrogen projects since 2020. Nevertheless, between two and ten billion euros are missing every year, according to a recent study by the Energy Economics Institute (EWI) at the University of Cologne. Walker and his colleagues also come to the conclusion that the production, transport and use of green hydrogen is and remains more expensive than the direct use of wind and solar energy. So far it is even more expensive than the use of gray hydrogen and fossil fuels.
Current technologies and innovations are not sufficient for cheaper green hydrogen. “It will be at least a decade before ‘green’ hydrogen produced from renewable energies becomes an economical alternative,” predicts Walker. The policy will therefore not achieve its set goals. In order to achieve their climate policy ambitions on schedule and to ensure that the electricity costs of green hydrogen are not transferred to citizens’ living costs, more money from the government and more research are needed.
Source: Current national atlas11.2024; Leibniz Institute for Regional Studies (IfL)