The Green Hydrogen Catapult, a coalition of green hydrogen leaders, convened with the support of the UN High Level Champions for Climate Action and hosted by RMI, today announced members’ commitment to develop 45 GW of electrolyzers with secured financing in the next five years.
Glasgow UK –– Members of the Green Hydrogen Catapult (GHC), a coalition of leaders in green hydrogen development, today announced a commitment for 45 GW of electrolyzers to be developed with secured financing by 2026, with targeted commissioning in 2027. The initial target set by the coalition at the time of its launch in December 2020, was 25 GW.
“Green hydrogen is a critical part of a sustainable energy future and one of the largest business opportunities of our time,” said Jules Kortenhorst, CEO at RMI. “It’s the key to decarbonizing hard-to-abate sectors like steel manufacturing, shipping and aviation, and I applaud GHC members for their commitment to accelerating the transition.”
Electrolyzers, use electricity to split water into hydrogen and oxygen, and are the leading technology for synthesizing zero-carbon hydrogen fuel using renewable energy, known as green hydrogen. Green hydrogen and derivatives are an essential solution to the decarbonization of heavy industry sectors and will constitute up to 25% of total final energy use in a net-zero economy.
“With 80% growth in their capacity commitment in one year, the Catapult and its members demonstrate the near-term potential for exponential growth in green hydrogen, enabled by local and global policy support and rapidly growing customer interest,” says Nigel Topping, UN High Level Champion for Global Climate Action.
This bold new commitment from GHC members, the largest announced by a private sector coalition, will bring global green hydrogen production in line with International Energy Agency production targets for net zero, as it adds to the existing project pipeline of 25GW. It will play a central role in delivering the Glasgow Breakthrough on Green Hydrogen to stimulate enabling policy measures on the necessary timeframe. As part of a broader adoption strategy, this announcement represents a significant contribution to deploying green hydrogen at the scale and speed required to reduce costs to well below the tipping point of US$2 per kilogram. This will enable green hydrogen to be a cost-competitive, zero-carbon solution in the near term.
“We are not waiting. The time is now to build the green hydrogen industry, and Fortescue Future Industries is aiming to supply 15 million tonnes of green hydrogen to the world by 2030,” Julie Shuttleworth, CEO of Fortescue Future Industries.
GHC members made an additional call for policy and business leaders to facilitate and accelerate green hydrogen adoption through the following actions:
- Matching GHC’s ambitions by setting and regularly updating five-year targets instead of longer-term, 2030-focused goals
- Ensuring at least equal market conditions for all fuels (conventional and green) to create fair competition in energy markets
- Providing near-term incentives to enable heavy industry sectors with long capital cycles to adopt green hydrogen and contribute to rapid cost reductions
- Establishing market support for green hydrogen through investing in the infrastructure required for the energy systems of the future, including hydrogen pipelines to connect production and consumption hubs
“The key to the energy transition will be to move vast amounts of renewable energy through space and time — from sunny and windy areas to cities and industrial clusters, and from sunny and windy times to dark, windless days — through the existing gas infrastructure. Green hydrogen will enable us to do so, at scale and competitively, contributing to an energy system that will be cheaper and more secure than the one we have today” added Marco Alverà, CEO of Snam.
About the Green Hydrogen Catapult
The Green Hydrogen Catapult is a global initiative convened with the support of the UN High Level Champions for Global Climate Action and hosted by RMI. It was founded and is led by a group of leading global industrials aiming to accelerate green hydrogen adoption at scale. Members include ACWA Power, CWP Global, Fortescue Future Industries, H2 Green Steel, Iberdrola, Mærsk Mc-Kinney Møller Center for Zero Carbon Shipping, Snam, Yara and Ørsted.
About RMI
RMI is an independent nonprofit founded in 1982 that transforms global energy systems through market-driven solutions to align with a 1.5°C future and secure a clean, prosperous, zero-carbon future for all. We work in the world’s most critical geographies and engage businesses, policymakers, communities, and NGOs to identify and scale energy system interventions that will cut greenhouse gas emissions at least 50 percent by 2030. RMI has offices in Basalt and Boulder, Colorado; New York City; Oakland, California; Washington, D.C.; and Beijing.
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