Hydrogen Council gains momentum as more companies join global initiative
March 13, 2018
Launched at the World Economic Forum in Davos in early 2017, the Hydrogen Council is a global CEO-led initiative which aims to foster the role of hydrogen technologies in the global energy transition. The Council has announced a further eleven corporations have now joined, including leading international oil & gas, energy, science & technology and automotive companies, almost doubling membership one year on from its launch.
Among the new member corporations, 3M, Bosch, China Energy, Great Wall Motor, JXTG Nippon Oil & Energy Corporation and Weichai have joined as steering members and Hexagon Composites, Marubeni, McPhy, Nel Hydrogen and Royal Vopak have joined at supporting level.
Since its launch, the council is said to have expanded to cover all key markets with members across the value chain. In addition to their ongoing individual investments and projects, the council reported that it expects its members to “join forces to drive change, accelerating the pace on a global scale” in 2018.
Dr Woong-chul Yang, Co-Chair of the Hydrogen Council and Vice Chairman of Hyundai Motor Company, stated, “We are delighted to welcome such impressive growth and the strong CEO-level commitment to hydrogen this demonstrates. This is corporate leadership at scale― multinationals are walking the talk when it comes to building better solutions to address the Paris Agreement climate goals and hydrogen has become an integral part of our strategies.”
With increasing interest from policymakers and investors around the globe, the council stated that it expects to see a decisive shift in deployment of hydrogen technologies globally in the next five to ten years, with scenarios suggesting that hydrogen technologies could contribute to meeting 18% of the world’s final energy demands, avoiding 6 Gt of CO2 emissions, creating a market with revenues of $2.5 trillion per annum and providing 30 million jobs by the middle of the century.
Benoît Potier, Co-Chair of the Hydrogen Council and Chairman and CEO of Air Liquide, stated, “I am pleased to see more and more leading companies around the world committing to the development of hydrogen, recognising it as a key solution to the energy transition. Since its launch one year ago, the council has been able to build strong momentum.”
“Its active participation in high-level international events such as the World Economic Forum, New York Climate Week, One Planet Summit and Cop23, lead to major progress engaging with policymakers and governments. Our priority in 2018 will be to continue this rapid pace working alongside global partners and international organisations to help make hydrogen an everyday reality,” he concluded.
The Hydrogen Council has published two studies to date: ‘How hydrogen empowers the energy transition’ (January 2017), exploring the role of hydrogen in the energy transition, including its potential, recent achievements, and challenges to its deployment, and ‘Hydrogen, scaling up’ (November 2017) presenting a look at the long-term potential of hydrogen and a roadmap for deployment.
