This interview by Charlie Currie was first published in H2 View.
Last Thursday (May 11) saw the unveiling of the Hydrogen Council’s Hydrogen Insights 2023 report, which found that projects reaching FID had grown by 30% between May 2022 and January 2023, totally $29bn.
Speaking to H2 View at the World Hydrogen Summit in Rotterdam, Wilson described the growth as “very gratifying.” Reflecting, he said, “It used to take 10 years to get to a single billion of projects, but now we’re talking about $29bn all ready to go in the next few years.”
“It’s exciting to see that project funnel maturity, which I think is a key point,” he said. “But there are headwinds now. Namely, inflation, but also there’s a much harder pull on supply chains which need to respond to all of this demand.”
Wilson noted that the hydrogen industry had seen monumental gains in the era of the Covid-19 pandemic and of course Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. However now, with economic uncertainty seemingly ahead, he said, “I think there’s some real challenges showing that it’ll be a real fight to work through a lot of this.”
Despite the clear increase in projects crossing the FID threshold, the Hydrogen Council’s report noted that those projects made up just 9% of the 1,040 tracked in the report.
When asked how the industry could navigate the headwinds and continue to increase the number of projects reaching FID, the Hydrogen Council Executive Director told H2 View, “I think the EU has a very important responsibility.”
“It’s the largest single portfolio of projects that has been five years in the making,” he said. “I commented on the FID issue a year ago and we’re still not moving many projects past the pole in Europe, even now.”
Wilson doesn’t believe that result is for lack of trying, “There’s a lot of enthusiasm,” he added.
Read the article in full here.
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