Green hydrogen: market opportunity

Goldman Sachs projects that green hydrogen will represent an $11 trillion market opportunity for the utility sector from 2022 to 2050.

NewHydrogen says hydrogen is the cleanest and most abundant fuel in the universe, has zero emissions, and produces only water vapor when used.

However, hydrogen does not exist in pure form on Earth, so it must be extracted.

For more than 200 years, scientists have known how to use electricity to split water into hydrogen and oxygen using a device called an electrolyzer.

Electrolyzers installed behind a solar or wind farm can use renewable electricity to split water, producing green hydrogen.

But modern electrolyzers still cost too much. The chemical catalysts that enable water splitting reactions are currently made from platinum and iridium, two very expensive precious metals. These catalysts account for almost 50% of the cost of the electrolyzer.

Green hydrogen

NewHydrogen is therefore developing clean energy technologies, and its current goal is to develop an electrolyzer technology to reduce the cost of green hydrogen production.

The U.S. Department of Energy indicated that more than 95% of the hydrogen produced in the world comes from steam reforming of natural gas (gray hydrogen) or from coal gasification (brown hydrogen).

Both sources of hydrogen are basically different forms of dirty, carbon-heavy, non-renewable fossil fuels.

This does nothing to fight climate change or to achieve renewable energy and a sustainable planet.

According to a 2023 Vantage Market Research report, green hydrogen has an annual market size of over $374 million in 2021, and is expected to reach $8.7 billion by 2028.

The development of cost-competitive green hydrogen from renewable resources such as solar, wind and water can significantly expand the hydrogen market.

For now, NewHydrogen believes that electrolyzer technology represents the safest path forward.

Against this global backdrop and concerted action in favor of climate policy and clean energy, we believe the green hydrogen revolution is poised to take off. The sun doesn’t always shine and the wind doesn’t always blow.

Therefore, green energy from solar and wind power is inherently intermittent and unreliable as a primary energy source.