Policy & Socio-Economics

In this work a new modeling tool called DECAL (DEcarbonize CALifornia) is developed and used to evaluate what it will take to reach California’s climate mandate of net-zero emissions by 2045. DECAL is a scenario-based model that projects emissions society-wide costs and resource consumption in response to user-defined inputs. DECAL has sufficient detail to model true net-zero pathways and reveal fine-grain technology insights. Using DECAL we find the State can achieve 52 % of the emissions abatement needed to meet net-zero by 2045 using technologies that are already commercially available such as electric vehicles heat pumps and renewable electricity & storage. While these technologies are mature the speed and scale of deployment required will still pose significant practical challenges if not technical ones. In addition we find that 25 % of emissions abatement will come from technologies currently at early-stage deployment and 23 % from technologies at research scale motivating the continued research & development of these technologies including zero-emission heavy-duty vehicles carbon capture & sequestration clean industrial heating low global warming potential refrigerants and direct air capture. Significant carbon dioxide removal will also be needed for California to meet its net-zero target on time at least 45 Mt/yr and more likely up to 75 Mt/yr by 2045. Accelerating deployment of mature technologies can further reduce the need for carbon removal nevertheless establishing enforceable carbon removal targets and conducting policy planning to make said goals a reality will be needed if California is to meet its net-zero by 2045 goal.

The year 2024 saw a year of important developments for the Clean Hydrogen JU continuing built on the achievements of previous years and intensifying the efforts on hydrogen valleys. With a total operational commitment of EUR 203 million and the launch of 22 new projects the overall portfolio reached a total number of 147 projects under active management towards the end of the year. The budget execution reached the outstanding level of 98% in for commitments and 84% in payments in line with previous year showing the JU’s continued effort to use the available credits. In 2024 the JU launched a call for proposals with a budget of EUR 113.5 million covering R&I activities across the whole hydrogen value chain to which was added an amount of EUR 60 million from the RePowerEU plan focusing on hydrogen valleys. That amount served for valleys-related grants and the “Hydrogen Valleys Facility” tender designed for project development assistance that will support Hydrogen Valleys at different levels of maturity. The Hydrogen Valleys concept has become a key instrument for the European Commission to scale up hydrogen technology deployment and establish interconnections between hydrogen ecosystems. At the end of 2024 the Clean Hydrogen JU has already funded 20 hydrogen valleys. This support was complemented by additional credits from third countries and the optimal use- of leftover credits from previous years allowing the award of 29 new grants from the call for 2024.

The European Union is on a pathway to achieve climate neutrality by 2050. This report explores the historic and necessary efforts to align Europe′s electricity heating and transport systems with transformative EU benchmarks for 2030 to meet that longer-term goal. CO2 emissions have declined significantly in the EU electricity subsystem over the past few decades. This presents an important opportunity to decarbonise rapidly in the near future and to roll out electrification to other sectors while strengthening energy independence security and competitiveness for all EU countries. Through accelerated gains in energy and resource efficiency and the alignment of Member States′ efforts within a more coherent EU energy system the rapid electrification of buildings transport and industry can greatly reduce Europe′s reliance on foreign fossil fuels and unlock critical progress in heating and transport. Over the past five years EU policy frameworks for climate mitigation and energy system transformation have become far more coherent and complete. Infrastructure security and resilience have been bolstered through integrated climate and energy planning in tandem with national and cross-border efforts to ensure sound policy implementation. It is now critical that decision-makers translate objectives and priorities for the energy system transition into actionable measures. This includes crafting fiscal strategies to finance key upfront infrastructure investments; distributing the cost of capital proportionally to not overburden taxpayers; aligning taxation pricing and information signals across the whole energy system; and regularly monitoring and evaluating performance to recalibrate policies when needed.

The study focuses on the deployment of renewable and low-carbon gases in the Baltic Energy Market Interconnection Plan (BEMIP) region focusing on the 8 BEMIP Member States (Denmark Estonia Finland Germany Latvia Lithuania Poland and Sweden). The report 1) assesses the economic and technical potential supply as well as demand for renewable and low-carbon gases in the BEMIP region; 2) maps current supply infrastructure and demand policies and measures; 3) documents existing technical safety and economic barriers for the development of infrastructure for the integration of biomethane and hydrogen; 4) identifies the hydrogen and methane infrastructure needs to facilitate the integration of renewable and low-carbon gases in the region; and 5) provides recommendations to address identified challenges.

Hydrogen is increasingly recognized as a clean energy vector and storage medium yet its viability and strategic role in the Western Balkans remain underexplored. This study provides the first comprehensive techno-economic environmental and strategic evaluation of hydrogen production pathways in Albania. Results show clear trade-offs across options. The levelized cost of hydrogen (LCOH) is estimated at 8.76 €/kg H2 for grid-connected 7.75 €/kg H2 for solar and 7.66 €/kg H2 for wind electrolysis—values above EU averages and reliant on lower electricity costs and efficiency gains. In contrast fossil-based hydrogen via steam methane reforming (SMR) is cheaper at 3.45 €/kg H2 rising to 4.74 €/kg H2 with carbon capture and storage (CCS). Environmentally Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) results show much lower Global Warming Potential.

This report aims to summarise the status of the European hydrogen market landscape. It is based on the information available at the European Hydrogen Observatory (EHO) initiative the leading source of data on hydrogen in Europe exploring the basic concepts latest trends and role of hydrogen in the energy transition. The data presented in this report is based on research conducted until the end of September 2024. This report contains information on current hydrogen production and trade distribution and storage end-use cost and technology manufacturing as of the end of 2023 except if stated otherwise in Europe. A substantial portion of the data gathering was carried out within the framework of Hydrogen Europe's efforts for the European Hydrogen Observatory. Downloadable spreadsheets of the data can be accessed on the website: https://observatory.clean-hydrogen.europa.eu/. The production and trade section provides insights into hydrogen production capacity and production output by technology in Europe and into international hydrogen trade (export and import) to and between European countries. The section referring to distribution and storage presents the location and main attributes of operational dedicated hydrogen pipelines and storage facilities as well as publicly accessible and operational hydrogen refuelling stations in Europe. The end-use section provides information on annual hydrogen consumption per end-use in Europe the deployment of hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles in Europe the current and future hydrogen Valleys in Europe and the leading scenarios for future hydrogen demand in Europe in 2030 2040 and 2050 by sector. The cost chapter offers a comprehensive examination of the levelised cost of hydrogen production by technology and country. This chapter also gives estimations of renewable hydrogen break-even prices for different end-use applications in addition to electrolyser cost components by technology. Finally a chapter on technologies manufacturing explores data on the European electrolyser manufacturing capacity and sales and the fuel cell market.

The LCOH calculator manual explains the methodology behind the calculator in detail and demonstrates how the calculator can be used.<br/>In this second version the default prices are updated based on the latest data available in the calculator and a new use case is introduced on changing the economic lifetime and cost of capital of an electrolysis installation.

This review explores the current status of green hydrogen integration into energy and industrial ecosystems. By considering notable examples of existing and developing green hydrogen initiatives combined with insights from the relevant scientific literature this paper illustrates the practical implementation of those systems according to their main end use: power and heat generation mobility industry or their combination. Main patterns are highlighted in terms of sectoral applications geographical distribution development scales storage solutions electrolyzer technology grid interaction and financial viability. Open challenges are also addressed including the high production costs an underdeveloped transport and distribution infrastructure the geopolitical aspects and the weak business models with the industrial sector appearing as the most favorable environment where such challenges may first be overcome in the medium term.

Green hydrogen produced from renewable energy sources such as wind and solar is increasingly recognized as a critical enabler of the global energy transition and the decarbonization of industrial and transport sectors. The successful adoption of green hydrogen and its derivatives is closely linked to production costs which can vary substantially between countries depending not only on resource potential but also on country-specific financing conditions. These differences arise from country-specific risk factors that affect the costs of capital ultimately influencing investment decisions. However comprehensive assessments that integrate these risks with future cost projections for renewable energy green hydrogen and its synthetic downstream products are lacking. Using the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) as an example this study introduces a novel approach that allows to incorporate mainly qualitative country-specific investment risks into quantitative analyses such as costpotential and energy modelling. Our methodology calculates weighted average costs of capital (WACC) for 17 MENA countries under different risk scenarios providing a more nuanced assessment compared to traditional models that use uniform cost of capital assumptions. The results indicate significant variations in WACC such as between 4.67% in the United Arab Emirates and 24.84% in Yemen or Syria in the business-as-usual scenario. The incorporation of country-specific capital cost scenarios in quantitative analysis is demonstrated by modelling the cost-potential of Fischer-Tropsch (FT) fuels. The results show that countryspecific investment risks significantly impact costs. For instance by 2050 the starting LCOFs in high-risk scenarios can be up to 180% higher than in lowerrisk contexts. This underlines that while renewable energy potential and its cost are important it are the country-specific risk factors—captured through WACC—that have a greater influence in determining the competitiveness of exports and consequently the overall development of the renewable energy green hydrogen and synthetic fuel sectors.

Hydrogen plays a key role in decarbonising hard-to-abate sectors like aviation steel and shipping. However producing pure hydrogen requires significant energy to break chemical bonds from its sources such as gas and water. Ideally the energy used for this process should match the energy output from hydrogen but in reality energy losses occur at various stages of the hydrogen economy—production packaging delivery and use. This results in needing more energy to operate the hydrogen economy than it can ultimately provide. To address this passive power sources like latent thermal energy storage systems can help reduce costs and improve efficiency. These systems can enable passive cooling or electricity generation from waste heat cutting down on the extra energy needed for compression liquefaction and distribution. This study explores integrating latent thermal energy storage into all stages of the hydrogen economy offering a cost and sizing approach for such systems. The integration could reduce costs close the waste-heat recycling loop and support green hydrogen production for achieving NetZero by 2050.