Producing green hydrogen using electricity from renewable sources to split water into hydrogen and oxygen is technically feasible - but very expensive. Currently, it cannot compete with the existing process, which involves catalytic conversion of methane or other fossil fuel feedstocks.
The European Commission wants to have 40GW of water-splitting electrolysers in the EU by 2030, producing 10 million tonnes of clean hydrogen a year. By 2050, hydrogen is foreseen to become a key part of Europe’s energy mix, requiring an investment of up to €470 billion in the next 30 years.
Backing this ambition, in the next year the Commission will launch the Clean Hydrogen Partnership for Europe, to develop technology for producing, storing and distributing renewable hydrogen. The EU is putting €1 billion into the initiative, to be matched by industry. Another six public private research partnerships will focus on decarbonising industries including rail, aviation and steel production, largely using hydrogen technologies.
At our institute researchers of the Laboratory of Materials for Energy Harvesting and Storage are studying materials and technologies for producing hydrogen in electrolysis, photoelectrolysis, biomass dark fermentation processes, for storage in metal hydrides and nanostructured composite materials, and for use in ion conducting membranes.
