WITH SPECIFIC TECHNOLOGICAL CHALLENGES INCLUDING :
Massively reducing the costs of green hydrogen production
Designing a scarce-material-free electrolyser
Developing a radical better method for transporting and storing hydrogen
A hydrogen-powered aviation challenge
EUROPE AND GREEN TRANSITION: WHAT’S NEXT ?
French President Macron met with Chancellor Merkel the 13th of October 2020 to discuss a joint approach on hydrogen. In parallel, the European Commission’s goal is to raise the share of hydrogen in Europe’s energy mix from 2% to 14% by 2050, to support the emission reduction target of 55% by 2030 (announced the 16th September 2020). Unfortunately, Grey Hydrogen (produced by fossil fuels) still accounts for roughly 95% of hydrogen produced in the world today. This underscores the importrance of new technologies will be to sustain Europe’s green transition.
To support these policies and be very bold and concrete, the Joint European Disruptive Initiative (JEDI), the European Darpa, is launching the JEDI Green Hydrogen GrandChallenge and will select the Strategic Partners for the Green Hydrogen GrandChallenge.
The GrandChallenge aims to make major scientific and technological breakthroughs, in order to lead to faster market adoption of Hydrogen. Private or public organizations that aim for massive impact in the Hydrogen/Energy space are encouraged to join the tender for which JEDI will select one or several strategic partners in the next 8 weeks.
GREEN TRANSITION WILL BE ACHIEVED THROUGH GREEN H2, NOT GREY H2
Hydrogen is crucial to achieve the decarbonization of human activities. But for its large-scale deployment, green hydrogen and its derivatives (ammonia, synthetic fuels...) need to be cost- competitive with alternative options in terms of production, transportation and end-use. This is currently far from being the case due to three main drawbacks:
Lack of technological maturity and scalability makes hydrogen too expensive: blue and green hydrogen production represent only 4% of the current hydrogen supply
Hydrogen has a low volumetric energy density and is more difficult to transport and distribute than polluting alternatives
End-use technologies based on hydrogen have not matured enough in hard-to-abate sectors (heavy transportation, steel and cement industries)
THE GREEN H2 GRANDCHALLENGE AIMS TO BREAK CRITICAL TECH BOTTLENECKS
Public support and subsidies will support the development of hydrogen, but focused & bold research and innovation efforts is needed for breaking current technological bottlenecks. The JEDI Green Hydrogen GrandChallenge will be focused on four main topics:
Massively reducing the costs of green hydrogen production
Designing a scarce-material-free electrolyser
Developing a radical better method for transporting and storing hydrogen
An exciting hydrogen-powered aviation challenge
These Challenges and their precise metrics for success will be individually detailed in the next weeks.