Hydrogen receives papal approval…

…or at least, approval from his envoy. Msg Emil Paul Tscherrig, Apostolic Nuncio for Italy and Monaco, passed on a message from His Holiness wishing that “hydrogen could be the energy carrier for rich and poor”. And this followed equally high level secular support, from Italian Prime Minster Conte, who opened the event.

'The event' was the high profile Hydrogen Challenge (#hychallenge) in Rome, organised by snam, the Italian gas utility, which united an unprecedented cadre of high-level participants. Unusually for a hydrogen gathering, it was billed as an ESG conference, linking the hydrogen opportunity with some of the social aspects of energy, companies in general, and finance. And despite an audience which was largely not from the ‘hydrogen community’, the debate was not about what hydrogen is or whether it would happen; but where first, how fast, and whether Europe could maintain a strong position.

High level hydrogen events are proliferating, from Clean Energy Ministerials and Davos CEO roundtables to G20 meetings and reports. But Italy has so far not played as significant a role as it could, and this upped the ante, bringing together political vision and hard-nosed industrialists, largely pressing for ‘bigger, better, faster, more’. The UK and Italy pledged to work together to bring the opportunity of hydrogen solutions to COP26 in Glasgow, with the next COP president – Claire Perry MP – arguing that proposing solutions was likely to engender more action than only talking about problems.

Snam’s landmark project injecting hydrogen into a gas grid, in part used to heat a pasta factory with lower-carbon fuel, led to the event’s best one-liner of ‘pasta decarbonara’. But more seriously, it led to discussion of the opportunity to bring large-scale solar hydrogen from N Africa via Italy, mixed into the gas throughout the European grid. Multiple speakers discussed industrial developments, the role of finance, and the fact that hydrogen reaches into many different parts of the energy ecosystem, bringing many and unexpected sometimes opportunities.

This was reinforced on day two of the event, where the assembled brains trust was invited to work in roundtable discussions to respond to questions and gauge opportunities on hydrogen production, storage and transmission, as well as end use. The overwhelming theme remained about speed and scale, with participants talking about GW-scale renewable hydrogen projects already in the development pipeline, helping create firm orders to allow electrolyser developers to scale and bring down costs. And the costs cited were impressive - €750/kW today, with €350/kW on the near-term large-scale horizon and further reductions potentially even approaching the cost of materials. €100/kW anyone? And if you want a 500MW electrolyser system, one or two providers might be able to get it to you within 16 months.

For those of us who have been in the hydrogen game a while, battling for small wins, this feels faintly surreal. That said, E4tech’s analysis supports the view of many of the participants that the components are in place, and that the most important need is for the first serious scale projects – minimum building block 100MW – to start operation. Those prove the theory, help the supply chain to scale, and starts to unlock some of the network and system effects beloved of the hydrogen community. And this sort of event helps mobilise both companies and policy-makers to enable those projects.