An energy world with the dominance of hydrogen is not impossible thanks to the developments in technology. However, only technical developments are not enough to achieve a blue and green hydrogen energy world. At that point, firstly, national hydrogen strategies emerge as a factor. In the fight against climate change, many governments believe that hydrogen made by renewable electricity is the main actor to get rid of carbon emissions. On the industry side, using blue and green hydrogen is crucial for sustainable economies besides environmentally-friendly industry targets.
Nowadays, most European counties present their national strategies regarding hydrogen and approve these papers through state institutions. These strategies involve long-term targets for energy, environment, industry, and economic development. Among other countries, Germany stays the course to be a global leader in hydrogen technologies while its institutions take firm actions to achieve the ambitions. The governments and industry leaders highly state that hydrogen can stay at the core components of decarbonization strategies only if technology, production, electricity, and raw material storage capacity, and infrastructure can be associated with hydrogen.
Besides all these necessary governmental steps, the cooperation between the state and public, companies, industrial and trade unions, civil societies, and academia is one of the most important elements for hydrogen governance. Some joint ventures have salient targets to become more attractive in hydrogen-related studies.
Firstly, these targets involve creating a global responsibility in the CO2 emissions issue while emphasizing the character of hydrogen to reduce the impacts of emissions thanks to its production and using techniques. Secondly, it is studied on the competitive market structure for hydrogen within the cost reductions. In this way, it is aimed to make great progress on the technological side. In conjunction with this concern, having a well-established domestic market is significant too.
At that point, the number of renewable projects is expected to increase in the near future, especially in the North Sea location due to its wind capacity and ongoing projects. Next, improving the current electricity and gas infrastructures may be a future concern for transport and distribution companies to continue using them without any energy security risk. The fifth is about training the personnel who do or will study in a hydrogen network, and the sixth is promoting research and development studies on hydrogen for now and the next generation. However, it shouldn’t be forgotten that all these can be achieved with strong cooperation among the parties.
Due to the capacity to offer a growing industry, clean environment, and sustainable electricity generation, the policies and common actions, at least in the EU, are inevitable things for the welfare. In order to exploit some associated economic opportunities, the number and efficiency of hydrogen cooperation should be increased because it is unlikely to be possible to reach the aims and ambitions for the energy transition in Europe. Joint ventures not only at the national and regional level but also at the global level is also significant to secure energy supply since renewable generation capacities are limited because of the weather conditions.
As many experts claim, European countries will remain one of the prominent hydrogen and energy importers; so, this is the main reason why they aim to create and boost regional and then international cooperation via several partnerships in the whole value chain. Moreover, after the impacts of the pandemic start to decrease, we will see many insightful hydrogen cooperation among the EU, US, and Asia-Pacific countries while they will try to help the governance of the future energy world.