• Ongoing Projects
• Hydrogen as a panacea?

Green hydrogen has almost achieved the status of a “panacea” in the energy policy debate. But the diversity of possible customers leads to ambiguities. The project examines the question of how directional certainty can be created here.

The Federal Government’s National Hydrogen Strategy shows the great importance attached to hydrogen (H2) as an energy carrier. Strategy papers of different actors are characterized by considerable technological optimism that green hydrogen can make a central contribution to climate protection and energy policy.

The starting point of the H2A? project is the observation that there is currently a massive “overbooking” of green hydrogen by a large number of sectors. This potentially leads to climate targets not being met and there could be negative impacts on alternative transformation pathways.

Directionality in hydrogen policy

Based on interdisciplinary transformation research and broad stakeholder participation, H2A? will address the following questions:

• What is the importance of directional certainty in H2 policy, policy mixes and actor strategies?
• How does certainty of direction emerge?
• What is the role of science in this process?

H2A? provides INSIGHTS for key political decisions on viable transformation paths.

The H2A? project builds on insights from interdisciplinary transformation research and the findings of the ITA project Governance of Radical System Innovations (Go) on the importance of directional certainty for the successful transformation of energy, industry and mobility systems.

Achieving climate targets with hydrogen?

The H2A? project will identify current and planned development paths for hydrogen use in the application fields of industry, heat, electricity and transport. These will be analyzed in their interactions with other technologies and the availability of green hydrogen.

The basis for this is an estimate of the extent to which the intended use in the aforementioned fields of application exceeds the expected possible production and imports of green hydrogen over time.

The findings of the project will be made available to the specialist public in the form of contributions to specialist conferences and through publications in peer-reviewed journals. Selected contents will be prepared in the form of policy papers and social media contributions for actors in politics, business, administration, associations and civil society.