Policy & Socio-Economics

In recent years production and supply of hydrogen has gained significant attention within the German energy transition. This is due to increasingly urgent pressures to mitigate climate change and geopolitical imperatives to substitute natural gas. Hydrogen is seen as an important cross-sectoral energy carrier serving multiple functions including heat production for industry and households fuel for transportation and energy storage for stabilization of elec Read More

The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) comprising: Saudi Arabia United Arab Emirates Kuwait Qatar Oman and Bahrain is home to an abundant number of resources including natural gas and solar and wind energy (renewables). Because of this the region is favourably positioned to become a significant player in both blue and green hydrogen production and their export. Current dependence on fossil fuels and ambitious national targets for decarbonisation Read More

Green hydrogen is expected to be traded globally in future greenhouse gas neutral energy systems. However there is still a lack of temporally- and spatially-explicit cost-potentials for green hydrogen considering the full process chain which are necessary for creating effective global strategies. Therefore this study provides such detailed cost-potentialcurves for 28 selected countries worldwide until 2050 using an optimizing energy systems approach based on Read More

Hydrogen is set to become an important energy carrier in Germany in the next decades in the country’s quest to reach the target of climate neutrality by 2045. To meet Germany’s potential green hydrogen demand of up to 587 to 1143 TWh by 2045 electrolyser capacities between 7 and 71 GW by 2030 and between 137 to 275 GW by 2050 are required. Presently the capacities for electrolysis are small (around 153 MW) and even with an increase in el Read More

This paper explores the current scope and direction of the emerging global governance of hydrogen within the broader context of the energy transition where technological innovation and institutional change intersect. Hydrogen as a critical yet complex energy vector requires coordinated governance efforts to navigate its development effectively. To this end we critically engage with key challenges facing the hydrogen sector and examine how institutio Read More

Hydrogen will become a key player in transitioning toward a net-zero energy system. However a clear pathway toward a unified European hydrogen infrastructure to support the rapid scale-up of hydrogen production is still under discussion. This study explores plausible pathways using a fully sector-coupled energy system model. Here we assess the emergence of hydrogen infrastructure build-outs connecting neighboring European nations thr Read More

The geographical understanding of directionality in the literature on mission-oriented innovation systems is still underdeveloped. Therefore this article reflects on whether the allocation of funding for R&D activities to different places can direct innovation systems in space. A placebased approach to the allocation of funding and its effects on innovation systems is developed to analyze how the German national government allocates funding to the national innov Read More

The aim of this study is to investigate the long-term planning of the Italian power sector from 2021 to 2050. The key role of photovoltaic and wind technologies in combination with power-to-power systems based on hydrogen and batteries is investigated. An updated version of the OSeMOSYS tool is used which employs a clustering method for the representation of time-varying input data. First the potential of variable renewable energy sources (VR Read More

This perspective article delves into the critical role of hydrogen as a sustainable energy carrier in the context of the ongoing global energy transition. Hydrogen with its potential to decarbonize various sectors has emerged as a key player in achieving decarbonization and energy sustainability goals. This article provides an overview of the current state of hydrogen technology its production methods and its applications across diverse industries. By Read More

Climate change and the pressure to decarbonize as well as energy security concerns have drawn the attention of policymakers and the industry to hydrogen energy. To advance the hydrogen economy at a global scale research and innovation progress is of significant importance among others. However previous studies have provided only limited quantitative evidence of the effects of research and innovation on the formation of a global hydrogen market. I Read More