The great unknown in German energy policy is how building up a large-scale hydrogen industry will affect the demand for renewables.

When the coalition decided to raise the country’s 2030 renewable power target to 65% (which it had previously set for 2040), the massive use of hydrogen in difficult-to-decarbonise sectors of the economy had not yet been planned.

Since late last year, the energy, environment and science ministries in late 2019 have been brooding over a national hydrogen strategy, which was supposed to be approved by the cabinet on March 11, but was also postponed due to the coronavirus crisis.

Drafts of the strategy seen by Recharge point to several billions of euros in subsidies to build up a hydrogen sector, which could be a boon for the renewables industry, in particular offshore wind. The government is mulling special tenders for offshore wind farms dedicated to green-hydrogen production.

Altmaier in earlier drafts of the hydrogen strategy still had emphasised a need for so-called "CO2-free" hydrogen, which in the proposal’s interpretation would include blue hydrogen (produced from natural gas with carbon capture and storage), or “turquoise” hydrogen (made through high-temperature pyrolysis of natural gas to produce hydrogen and solid carbon).

But on the insistence of science minister Anja Karliczek, a later draft of the strategy backed mainly green hydrogen — produced by renewables-powered electrolysers that split water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen — over the blue or turquoise varieties.

“In the view of the Federal Government, only hydrogen produced on the basis of renewable energies (‘green hydrogen’) is sustainable in the long run,” the proposal stressed.

According to the draft, seen by Recharge, it was still undecided whether Germany by 2030 should have 3-5GW of green-hydrogen electrolyser capacity (favoured by the energy ministry) or 10-15GW (proposed by the science ministry).

Germany’s renewable energy federation, BEE, said it estimates a green-hydrogen production capacity of 11.5GW in 2030, which would correspond to a power output of 105 terawatt hours if power-to-heat applications are included.

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