Hydrogen: energising prospects for SPIE

Across most SPIE countries, we are seeing huge investments, both public and private, to promote the development of hydrogen - in particular "green" hydrogen (decarbonized). The EU has set an overall target of 40 gigawatts of hydrogen electrolysis capacity by 2030: France has pledged €7.2 billion of public funds and Germany €9 billion towards this goal. To give you an idea: the largest facilities today produce a few dozen megawatts. Tomorrow, they will generate several hundred megawatts. So we are talking about huge state subsidies which will expand production of decarbonized hydrogen and lead to economies of scale, eventually bringing down the price of hydrogen. 

It’s important to see this as part of a broader ecosystem, too. To be clean, hydrogen needs to be produced using renewable energy. This means that there will be large-scale investment not just in the electrolysers used to make green hydrogen, but in the wind and solar farms to power them.  

This hydrogen will then be used as an energy store which can be converted back into electricity and injected into the grid to stabilize it – we call this  "Power-to-gas-to-power”. Thus, the production of hydrogen by electrolysis can be a way to better manage the intermittency of renewable energies and the occasional weaknesses of wind and solar production. 

Alternatively, hydrogen could be fed into the gas grid and used to heat buildings or supply industrial boiler rooms. It will also be used as fuel to power hydrogen-cell vehicles. Finally, there are exciting carbon-capture applications in which industrial emitters use hydrogen to turn carbon dioxide into methane (methanation), thus allowing to recycle the CO₂ already emitted. 

So we are talking about a very diverse market set to grow markedly across the board.

The complexity and breadth of the hydrogen ecosystem is a fantastic opportunity for SPIE inasmuch as we are already present at all points: industrial applications, renewable energies production, gas and electric grids, mobility solutions… As an integrator, we can offer a range of specific services to clients – electrical installation, automation and supervision, sensors and monitoring, piping – while also taking a holistic approach to the hydrogen ecosystem. If we think in terms of SPIE markets, hydrogen has always played a role in Industry services and is fast becoming part of Energy; with advances in hydrogen-powered transport, it will soon become a standard element in Smart Cities, too. Further into the future, hydrogen may also figure in e-fficient buildings – and this is an area where SPIE has the potential to drive change.  What is more, we are a European group, and the big players in the hydrogen market are globally active and looking for partners who can work with them across countries.

Across SPIE subsidiaries, we have various areas of expertise which are already highly relevant to hydrogen or will become so in the near future. Thus, in France, or more recently in Poland and Hungary, we help operators of windfarms and solar parks to install and maintain their infrastructure. In some countries, such as Belgium, we are already supporting power grids as they install electricity storage systems. And in France, we work with existing producers of hydrogen such as Air Liquide.

As early as 2012, we installed a hydrogen dispensing station in Hamburg’s HafenCity urban regeneration area alongside Linde and Vattenfall. In 2015, also in Germany, we provided electrical instrumentation and grid connection to an H2 injector installed by the municipal utilities company in Mainz. In France, since 2019, we have worked on several refuelling stations projects in Normandy, even delivering an entire solution to the town council in Le Havre. Also, working for GRTgaz in Fos-sur-Mer, Marseille, we helped install an industrial-scale pilot methanation plant.

From producing green hydrogen and distributing it through to supporting its use in power storage, as a fuel, or in industry, SPIE is present at every stage. We are positioning ourselves accordingly as a partner which can add value at all points – and as an integration expert with the necessary experience and partnerships to help implement all manner of projects. As the market evolves, we will also be focussing on how industry 4.0 technologies, such as intelligent automation, can help to optimise the production, distribution, and use of hydrogen.