Stakeholder meeting HyWay 27 – 29 September 2020

“what are the major hurdles with investing in a hydrogen market?” And which concerns are present regarding engineering and safety? These are questions who the + 350 attendees tried to answer during the live webinar of HyWay 27. The purpose of this meeting was to have an interactive session where the attendees could think along and chat about several hydrogen topics.

Hydrogen will have several crucial functions for energy- and feedstock systems (medium term: 2030 and long term: 2050). The objective of HyWay 27 is to determine if and under which conditions the existing gas infrastructure can be used for hydrogen transport and storage. This topic and the corresponding political playing field is addressed by Gijs Postma (MT member board of Electricity – EZK) and René Schutte (Program manager hydrogen – Gasunie). Three research questions were asked: (1) What about demand and supply? (2) What about the financial and legal aspect and (3) What about safety and engineering? Besides these questions, market development was also outlined (regional, national, European and international scenarios).

The attendees could answer several questions by means of an online tool. One of the questions was: “what are the major hurdles with investing in a hydrogen market?”. Response showed that this relates mainly to the costs involved with hydrogen and the accompanying infrastructure. But also, “It takes too long in the Netherlands, while in Germany companies already switched” and “the lack of law and regulations”.

The insights of the attendees will be taken into account by the project team. The results of HyWay 27 are expected in the first quarter of 2021.