Green hydrogen has considerable potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in industries that are difficult to decarbonize, including heavy-duty transportation, energy-intensive manufacturing, and long-term energy storage. “Widespread adoption of hydrogen, however, is widely considered to depend on substantial cost declines of power-to-gas technologies,” explains Professor Gunther Glenk, Assistant Professor at the University of Mannheim and Climate Fellow at Harvard Business School.
The new study, which Glenk co-authored with Philip Holler and Professor Stefan Reichelstein (both University of Mannheim), estimates how quickly gains are made for different hydrogen technologies. Based on global observations of installed power-to-gas systems, the authors project that the life-cycle cost of clean hydrogen production will likely fall in the range of 1.6–1.9 US dollars/