Europe on track for 2.7 GW of operational hydrogen electrolyser capacity by 2025

Analysis of the rapidly growing European hydrogen electrolyser market finds that total announced project capacity would take the green hydrogen sector to 2.7 GW by 2025 – a nearly 50-fold increase on capacity built over the last decade. However, time is running out to establish the many projects on the 100s of MW scale required to achieve an EU target of 6 GW by 2024, according to Delta-EE.

Project activity around clean hydrogen has been growing quickly over the past 10 years, reports the market analyst, with 67 operational projects including electrolysers and targeting new energy applications developed across 13 different countries. These projects offer a total capacity of 56 MW, producing an estimated 4,700 t/y of green hydrogen. Approximately half of this is consumed by the transport industry, and approximately one third is used for decarbonising industrial applications, such as petrochemical refining.

Today, nearly half of all European electrolyser capacity is in Germany, while no other country has more than 10 MW installed, according to the study. However, the sector is expanding fast; the first major projects in several countries (eg Spain, Netherlands, Denmark) will be at the 10s of MW scale in 2021/2022 and will soar towards the 100s of MW by 2025. A key factor in this growth will be the increase in manufacturing capacity of electrolyser manufacturers. Today’s leading manufacturers such as Nel Hydrogen, ITM Power, Cummins and McPhy, are all building factories capable of producing 100s of MW if not GWs of electrolysers a year.

Robert Bloom, Product Manager, comments on the expanding electrolyser market: ‘There are two sides to this story. On the one hand, this is incredibly rapid growth of a key technology for net zero targets; on the other, it’s still well short of the tremendously ambitious national and EU targets that have been set. We should remember though, that this is an embryonic market. The current project pipeline is driven almost entirely by EU or national funding with project stakeholders targeting use-sectors where state aid is strongest. With the huge amounts of capital made available through various national hydrogen strategies, the EU green deal and IPCEI (important projects of common European interest) hydrogen, we expect to see many more projects added to the pipeline.’