Policy & Socio-Economics

Inspired by the announcement of the new Hydrogen Strategy for the UK in 2021 this study aimed to determine how the oil and gas industry responds and adapts to the changes. This paper analyses qualitative and quantitative data from the companies’ annual and energy reports. Four oil and gas companies involved in hydrogen projects in the UK were selected as case studies. The responses from the companies were collected using the content analysis research strategy in 2019–2021. A steady increase was observed based on the code frequency reflecting the increasing discussions and actions the companies took regarding this hydrogen pathway. Although only one company appears to be at the forefront of this transition progress with a score of almost 90% based on the strategy management analysis other companies continue to demonstrate their commitment to supporting the national target.

Climate change has become a major agenda item in international relations and in national energy policy-making circles around the world. This review studies the surprising evolution of the energy policy and more particularly the energy transition currently happening in the Arabian Gulf region which features some of the world’s largest exporters of oil and gas. Qatar Saudi Arabia and other neighboring energy exporters plan to export blue and green hydrogen across Asia as well as towards Europe in the years and decades to come. Although poorly known and understood abroad this recent strategy does not threaten the current exports of oil and gas (still needed for a few decades) but prepares the evolution of their national energy industries toward the future decarbonized energy demand of their main customers in East and South Asia and beyond. The world’s largest exporter of Liquefied Natural Gas Qatar has established industrial policies and projects to upscale CCUS which can enable blue hydrogen production as well as natural carbon sinks domestically via afforestation projects.

The Mediterranean basin has been characterized by a net flow of fossil commodities from the North African shore to Southern Europe and the Middle East for decades; however decarbonizing the energy system implies to substantially modify this situation turning the current “black dialogue” into a “green dialogue” (i.e. based on the exchange of renewable electricity and green hydrogen). This paper presents a feasibility study conducted to estimate the potential green hydrogen production by electrolysis in three Tunisian sites. It shows and compares several plant layouts varying the size and typology of renewable electricity generators and electrolyzers. The work adopts local weather data and technical features of the technologies in the computations and accounts for site specific topographical and infrastructural constraints such as land available for construction and local power grid connection capacities. It shows that configurations able to produce large quantities of green hydrogen may not be compliant with such constraints basically nullifying their contribution in any hydrogen strategy. Finally results show that the LCOH lies in the range 1.34 $/kgH2 and 4.06 $/kgH2 depending on both the location and the combination of renewable electricity generators and electrolyzers.

Africa has enormous potential to produce low-cost e-fuels e-chemicals and e-materials required for complete defossilisation using its abundant renewable resources widely distributed across the continent. This research builds on techno-economic investigations using the LUT Energy System Transition Model and related tools to assess the power-to-X potential in Africa for meeting the local demand and exploring the export potential of power-to-products applications. In this context we analysed the economic viability of exporting green e-fuel echemicals and e-materials from Africa to Europe. We also present the core elements of the Power-to-X Economy i.e. renewable electricity and hydrogen. The results show that hydrogen will likely not be traded simply due to high transport costs. However there is an opportunity for African countries to export e-ammonia e-methanol ekerosene jet fuel e-methane e-steel products and e-plastic to Europe at low cost. The results show that Africa’s low-cost power-to-X products backed by low-cost renewable electricity mainly supplied by solar photovoltaics is the basis for Africa’s vibrant export business opportunities. Therefore the Power-to-X Economy could more appropriately be called a Solar-to-X Economy for Africa. The Power-to-X Economy will foster socio-economic growth in the region including new industrial opportunities new investment portfolios boost income and stimulate local technical know-how thereby delivering a people-driven energy economy. Research on the topic in Africa is limited and at a nascent stage. Thus more studies are required in future to guide investment decisions and cater to policy decisions in achieving carbon neutrality with e-fuels e-chemicals and e-materials.

The high potential in renewable energy sources (RES) and the availability of strategic minerals for green hydrogen technologies place Africa in a promising position for the development of a climate-compatible economy leveraging on hydrogen. This study reviews the potential hydrogen value chain in Africa considering production and final uses while addressing perspectives on policies possible infrastructures and facilities for hydrogen logistics. Through scientific studies research and searching in relevant repositories this review features the collection analysis of technical data and georeferenced information about key aspects of the hydrogen value chain. Detailed maps and technical data for gas transport infrastructure and liquefaction terminals in the continent are reported to inform and elaborate findings about readiness for hydrogen trading and domestic use in Africa. Specific maps and technical data have been also collected for the identification of potential hydrogen offtakers focusing on individual industrial installations to produce iron and steel chemicals and oil refineries. Finally georeferenced data are presented for main road and railway corridors as well as for most important African ports as further end-use and logistic platforms. Beyond technical information this study collects and discusses more recent perspectives about policies and implementation initiatives specifically addressing hydrogen production logistics and final use also introducing potential criticalities associated with environmental and social impacts.

In order to achieve the ambitious goal of “carbon neutrality” countries around the world are striving to develop clean energy. Against this background this paper takes China and Italy as representatives of developing and developed countries to summarize the energy structure composition and development overview of the two countries. The paper analyzes the serious challenges facing the future energy development of both countries and investigates the possibilities of energy cooperation between the two countries taking into account their respective advantages in energy development. By comparing the policies issued by the two governments to encourage clean energy development this paper analyzes the severe challenges faced by the two countries’ energy development in the future and combines their respective energy development advantages to look forward to the possibility of energy cooperation between the two countries in the future. This lays the foundation for China and Italy to build an “Energy Road” after the “Silk Road”.

With decreasing costs of the clean technologies the balanced scales of the Sustainable Development Goal 7 targets e.g. energy equity (EE) energy security (ES) and environmental sustainability (EVS) are quickly changing. This fundamental balancing process is a key requirement for a net-zero future. Accordingly this research analyzes the regime-switching effect of Hydrogen economy as the green transition sharing economy and economic complexity as the complexity-based and geopolitical risks and energy prices as the geostrategy policies on the Goal 7 targets. To this end a Markov-switching panel vector autoregressive method with regime-heteroskedasticity is applied to study advancing the Goal 7 in the world's twenty-five large energy consumers during 2004–2020. Concerning the parameters and statistics of the model the results refer to the existence of two regimes associated with the Goal 7 corners called “upward and downward” regimes for EE and “slightly upward and sharply upward” regimes for ES and EVS. It is revealed that the vulnerability of EE and ES targets is considerably reduced when the regime switches to the dominant regime that is “downward” and “slightly upward” regimes respectively and that of the EVS target remains unaffected. Through the impulse-response analysis the findings denote that the first hypothesis of the efficiency of the Hydrogen economy in promoting the Goal 7 targets is insignificant. However the significant short-term and dynamic shock effects of the complexity-based and geostrategy policies on the Hydrogen economy are detected which will be a feasible alternative assessment in advancing the Goal 7. Further the complexity-based policies support the Goal 7 targets under different regimes especially in the short- and medium-term. Hence the second hypothesis regarding the effectiveness of the complexity-based policies in promoting Goal 7 targets is confirmed. The third hypothesis concerning the complexity of the impact of geostrategy policies on the Goal 7 targets is verified. Particularly the switching process towards the Goal 7 may not necessarily be restricted by the geopolitical risks. Moreover EE is supported through energy prices in the short-term under both regimes while they are non-conductive to promote ES and EVS through time. Accordingly the decision-makers should acknowledge adopting a regime-switching path forward for ensuring the time-varying balanced growth of the Goal 7 targets as the impact of the suggested policy instruments is asymmetric.

This research aims to determine the position and the breakthrough trajectory of sustainable energy technologies. Fine-grained insights into these breakthrough positions and trajectories are limited. This research seeks to fill this gap by analyzing sustainable energy technologies’ breakthrough positions and trajectories in terms of development application and upscaling. To this end the breakthrough positions and trajectories of seven sustainable energy technologies i.e. hydrogen from seawater electrolysis hydrogen airplanes inland floating photovoltaics redox flow batteries hydrogen energy for grid balancing hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles and smart sustainable energy houses are analyzed. This is guided by an extensively researched and literature-based model that visualizes and describes these technologies’ experimentation and demonstration stages. This research identifies where these technologies are located in their breakthrough trajectory in terms of the development phase (prototyping production process and organization and niche market creation and sales) experiment and demonstration stage (technical organizational and market) the form of collaboration (public–private private–public and private) physical location (university and company laboratories production sites and marketplaces) and scale-up type (demonstrative and first-order and second-order transformative). For scientists this research offers the opportunity to further refine the features of sustainable energy technologies’ developmental positions and trajectories at a detailed level. For practitioners it provides insights that help to determine investments in various sustainable energy technologies.

Green hydrogen has become a core element of Europe’s energy transition to assist in lowering carbon emissions. However the transition to green hydrogen faces challenges including the cost of production availability of renewable energy sources public opposition and the need for supportive government policies and financial initiatives. While there are other alternatives for producing low-carbon hydrogen for example blue hydrogen German funding favours projects that involve hydrogen production via electrolysis. Beyond climate goals it is anticipated that a green hydrogen industry will create economic benefits and a wide-range of collaborative opportunities with key international partnerships increasing energy security if done appropriately. Germany a leader in green hydrogen technology will need to rely on imports to meet long-term demand due to limited renewable energy capacity. Despite the current obstacles to transitioning to green hydrogen it is felt that ultimately the benefits of this industry and reducing emissions will outweigh the associated costs of production. This study analyses the hydrogen transition in Germany by interviewing 37 European experts guided by the research question: What are the key perceived barriers and opportunities influencing the successful adoption and integration of hydrogen technologies in Germany’s hydrogen transition?

This study examines the economic and regulatory implications of the development of Germany’s hydrogen core network. Using a mathematical-economic model of the amortization account and a reproduction of the network topology based on the German transmission system operators’ draft proposals the analysis evaluates the impact of delaying the network expansion with completion postponed from 2032 to 2037. The proposed phased approach prioritizes geographically clustered regions and ensures sufficient demand alignment during each expansion stage. The results demonstrate that strategic adjustments to the network size and timing significantly enhance cost-efficiency. In the initially reduced and delayed scenario uncapped network tariffs remain below €15/ kWh/h/a suggesting that under specific conditions the amortization account may become redundant while maintaining supply security and supporting the market ramp-up of hydrogen. These findings highlight the potential for demand-driven phased hydrogen infrastructure development to reduce financial burdens and foster a sustainable transition to a hydrogen-based energy system.