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What exactly is the hydrogen rollout?
Innovative technologies and energy sources are essential to the energy reforms – and hydrogen is no exception. It has the advantage of offering good storage and transport opportunities. If sourced using renewable energy, it allows for a secure and flexible supply of energy. Hydrogen can also be used to decarbonise the industrial, transport and energy sectors. Depending on the production method used, it is classed into different colour-coded categories (cf. the hydrogen spectrum).
The hydrogen rollout is about building a market for hydrogen by establishing the relevant infrastructure (pipelines, storage facilities, import corridors) and a network of producers, traders and buyers (e.g. steel industry, refineries, aviation industry, shipping and long-distance haulage). The National Hydrogen Strategy wants to establish hydrogen produced in a climate-friendly way as a key element of the energy transition. For this purpose, a regulatory framework, a financing model for the hydrogen core network, the transformation of the distribution networks and simple criteria for colour-coding hydrogen and for greenhouse gas quotas are being established to ensure that market players have a reliable basis to plan on.
Already, Germany is playing a leading role in this internationally. The technologies and concepts developed here are in demand from all over the world. Along with the US and Japan, Germany is among the nations filing the most hydrogen-related patent applications. The demand market is especially important for market ramp-up and the financing and development of successful technologies. The expertise and the industrial structure available in Germany, plus the country’s clear commitment to transforming its industries, are key drivers of market development.
The hydrogen rollout starts in fields where there is willingness to pay (e.g. refineries) or in which demand can be incentivised in a cost-efficient way (e.g. process heat). The infrastructure, including the core network and the import corridors, is being built gradually and in step with demand, all in accordance with the Network Development Plan. Some initial pipelines in the core network – including the world’s longest at almost 400 kilometres long – are to enter operations by the end of this year so as to ensure the transport of domestically produced or imported hydrogen.
The core network approved by the Bundesnetzagentur in October 2024 has 9,040 kilometres of pipelines running from north to south and from west to east, connecting up centres of production, import points and industrial centres of storage and consumption and power plants. Some 60% of the pipelines will be taken from the existing network for natural gas. All German states are to be connected to up the core network.
For more information about hydrogen in Germany, for deeper insights into the National Hydrogen Strategy, the Hydrogen Import Strategy and the nascent hydrogen infrastructure, look to our carefully structured dossier Hydrogen: a key element of the energy transition.
An overview of the funding instruments of the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy for the international hydrogen rollout can be found here. The monitoring report on the energy transition published on 15 September provides a comprehensive overview of the current state of the energy transition and the hydrogen rollout in Germany. The key measures for a business-friendly and competition-friendly economic environment also refer to the requirements for the hydrogen rollout.