Two energy companies, Equinor and RWE, are developing plans to help Germany transition from coal-fired plants. The plans involve creating a hydrogen supply chain.
The initial steps i.e. move to delivered LNG already seem in motion.
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The Federal Audit Office in Germany issued a report last month on the German hydrogen program. The summary begins, “Despite billions in subsidies, the German government is failing to meet its ambitious targets for ramping up the hydrogen economy. Supply and demand remain well below expectations. This jeopardizes the achievement of climate neutrality by 2045 and the future viability of Germany as an industrial location.”
Since 2020, the sector has seen many subsidies. For 2024 and 2025 alone, more than €7 billion in funding has been allocated.
Private investors – enticed by guarantees and state-backed prices – have added more than €3 billion annually. And the result after five years of constant funding? Disappointing. Current production of green hydrogen stands at a mere 0.16 gigawatts. Another 0.2 gigawatts are under construction.
DB2
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It is interesting they chose to describe the production of hydrogen in terms of gigawatts. Is that the capacity of the power plants that burn the hydrogen? Or is that the energy content of the hydrogen, converted from megajoules per day or gigajoules per year, or something?
I would have used kilograms of actual gas being produced, or something like cubic meters at STP, like natural gas. But gigawatts? Seems strange.
_ Pete
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They say Germany would have to import a minimum of three-quarters of the expected 2030 global production of green hydrogen (63 TWh). Global capacities would not be sufficient to meet the expected maximum import requirements.
It doesn’t sound reality based.
DB2
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It might have to do with the power capacity of the electrolyzers used to split water into oxygen and hydrogen. The following link from the IEA describes electrolyzer capacity in terms of GW.
This is not very exact, however, because the efficiency of the electrolyzers can vary, depending on the particular technology. There are some green hydrogen production methods that don’t even use electrolyzers (the sulfur-iodine cycle, for example).
_ Pete
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Hydrogen is a loser. This path won’t work.
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Would it be sacrilegious to say the Germans don’t know what they are doing? Or maybe, some Germans don’t know what they are doing. A few months back, I was reading up on what the Belgians were doing with Hydrogen and Ammonia. At least, this is what Belgian shipping entity CMBtech (CMBT) suggest is part of their transition plans to Hydrogen and Ammonia. CMB.TECH | H2 Industry CMB.TECH
How well does CMBtech’s Hydrogen infrastructure scale? Don’t know. But they have some variety of existing vessels, and more vessels on order, to offer as test candidates. Dual-fuel vessels are one way to ensure the company vessels are not drifting aimlessly, or are sitting at port waiting for fuel, in the event the technology is not meeting expectations.
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The Fischer-Tropsch process never became economically competitive except in special situations like South Africa’s Sasol → much coal, little oil.
Economic sacrilege? 
The Captain
Well, they did manage to talk themselves into shutting down all of their nuclear power plants.
DB2
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Hydrogen is known to be expensive with existing technology. The discovery of natural hydrogen deposits has potential to change that but much too soon to know if that is large enough to be practical.
Decision to shut down coal and nuclear makes Germany especially dependent on imported natural gas (cheap from Russia, expensive as LNG). They must do wind and solar with few alternatives. Or revise their policies to fit the new situation.
Major changes in their manufacturing economy is implied.
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The Germans are experimenting for another purpose. The Europeans want to get Hydrogen from facilities in Africa. German companies need to experiment. If the engineers can both scale up and make more efficient technologies, then with German capital bringing energy from Sub-Saharan Africa into Europe will make plenty of sense. It is a very long-term plan.
It is not short-sighted American C-suite garbage.
I was joking today that we have never had a new VP that did not rearrange the furniture.
IIRC, it involves Saharan Africa (Morocco). In the meantime, say the next decade, there is no meaningful demand for the overpriced product.
In addition, scaling hydrogen production requires large industrial demand—but in Germany industry is shrinking.
DB2
Hydrogen powered buses are common in European cities.
No demand is in the US. That does not count.
Kinda, sorta. There are about 1500 hydrogen buses in Europe. There are over 700,000 buses in Europe.
1.5/700 = 0.2%
DB2
That is a lot of buses to replace. Don’t ya think?
Checked to see my “busses” is outdated.
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In Porto they are testing them. Natural gas and electric are quite common. I’m not sure if they still have gas and diesel. Lots of busses seem to be second hand, they have writing in lots of strange languages.
The Captain
I think diesel buses in Dublin are gone.
Here’s another hydrogen market…
DB2
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