Investor Day – Hydrogen: ready to scale

On 18 September, the Hydrogen Council hosted its inaugural Investor Day – Hydrogen: ready to scale.

As an affiliate event of New York Climate Week, the ground breaking event was complimented by the announcement of 3 new North American members joining the Council; General Motors as a Steering Member and Hydrogenics and Ballard joining as Supporting Members.

The event boasted more than 160 investors, industry experts and policy stakeholders. Keynotes included contributions by Benoît Potier, Co-Chair of Hydrogen Council, Chairman and CEO, Air Liquide, Sue Reid, VP Climate & Energy, Ceres, and Patrick Pouyanné, Chairman and CEO of Total. Other notable industry executives and Council CEOs actively participated in the discussion. See agenda for full speaking list.

Panels covered how hydrogen empowers the energy transition; why these technologies are now considered market-ready; discussed existing business cases and investment opportunities, as well as the strategies and tools required for scale deployment. The event was expertly moderated by Roberto Bocca, Head of Energy and Basic Industries and a member of the Executive Committee at the World Economic Forum Geneva.

Find an album of photos from the event here

Key conclusions from the event:

• Major technology progress has been achieved in the last 10 years with costs reduced by a factor of 20 over the period.
• Commercial products are now being marketed across sectors and along the full hydrogen value chain, including hydrogen production (e.g. electrolyzers), hydrogen stations, forklifts, cars, buses, trains, heating & power systems etc.
• Manufacturing capacities across the world are growing, which will yield additional cost decrease in coming years. New plants have been announced in the US, Canada, Germany, Japan, Korea, China etc.
• These developments are driven by a dense ecosystem of large OEM’s, specialized SME’s and innovative start-ups.
• Some markets are already fully activated, leveraging cost-competitive products such as material handling, captive fleets of vehicles (taxis, buses…) etc.
• Exponential growth is underway in all addressed markets, supported by clear political backing.
• There are no technical bottlenecks to reach scale, but there is a need to anticipate investments. This includes ramping up the total number of hydrogen stations worldwide from 300 to 3,000 in the next 5-7 years. Investments will multiply by 10 over the period.
• Investments are required along full value chain, from product development, manufacturing lines to hydrogen infrastructure Investors are encouraged to get in early.

Next steps

Watch this space for more information about the Council’s upcoming event at COP23 in Bonn later this year, the second Annual CEO Meeting the Hydrogen Council will hold, bringing together top level representatives of its members to connect, update on progress and reassert their ongoing commitment to hydrogen as one of the key components of the energy transition.