Green Hydrogen Pipeline Surges on a Wave of Announced Mega-Projects

The pipeline of electrolyzer projects destined to produce hydrogen from renewable energy has nearly tripled in just five months, according to Wood Mackenzie. The analyst firm has updated the green hydrogen figures it released in a report last October, following an avalanche of new project announcements.

In its first report, titled Green Hydrogen Production: Landscape, Projects and Costs, Wood Mackenzie Power & Renewables counted 3.2 gigawatts of planned electrolyzer capacity, a twelvefold increase over the cumulative installed capacity at the time. As of March 2020, that pipeline had increased to 8.2 gigawatts, or 31 times the cumulative installed capacity today.

In particular, recent months have seen a big leap in the number of projects clocking in at 100 megawatts or higher. There are 17 of these now under development around the world, with mega-plants slated for Australia, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Paraguay, Portugal, the U.K. and the U.S.

“We are seeing larger and larger projects announced with backing from Fortune 500 companies,” commented Ben Gallagher, a subject-matter expert in carbon and emerging technology for Wood Mackenzie’s Energy Transition practice.

The most ambitious of the plans being tracked by Wood Mackenzie is the Asian Renewable Energy Hub in the Pilbara region of Australia. Billed by backers as “one of the most exciting energy projects in the world,” it is set to have up to 15 gigawatts of wind and solar generation capacity, 12 gigawatts of which will be dedicated to green hydrogen production. WoodMac estimates the hub will have 1 gigawatt of electrolysis capacity upon completion in 2027.

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