The German cabinet on Wednesday approved an updated hydrogen strategy, setting guidelines for hyd
rogen production and transport infrastructure plans as Europe’s largest economy aims to become climate-neutral by 2045.
Germany is seeking to expand reliance on hydrogen as a future industrial energy source to make its economy greener and after Russian gas imports dropped last year in the wake of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
Under the updated strategy, the government raised its domestic electrolysis capacity target for 2030 to at least 10 gigawatts (GW) from a previous 5 GW.
State aid is expected to be approved for around 2.5 GW of electrolysis projects this year under the strategy, which sees German hydrogen demand at 95 to 130 terawatt hours (TWH) in 2030, of which around 50% to 70% would be covered by imports.
“A domestic supply that meets demand would neither make economic sense nor serve the transformation processes resulting from the energy transition as a whole,” the strategy read.
The strategy allows the usage of hydrogen produced through lower-carbon energy sources but limits direct government subsidies for hydrogen produced through renewables, dubbed as “green”.
Funds for launching a hydrogen network with more than 1,800 km pipelines in Germany are expected to flow by 2027/2028 through the bloc’s Important Projects of Common European Interest (IPCEI) financing scheme, with the goal of connecting all major generation, import and storage centres to customers by 2030.
