Jorgo Chatzimarkakis, Hydrogen Europe CEO, forecasts market trajectory

CEO of Hydrogen Europe, Jorgo Chatzimarkakis, speaks on the contribution of clean hydrogen to the energy mix, citing its versatility as a key strength.

The acute energy crunch in the wake of the Covid pandemic and invasion of Ukraine has drawn further attention to the potential for green hydrogen to support the drive to net zero; already seen by many as a vital catalyst for decarbonisation.

In an interview given to Enlit Europe late last year, the CEO of Hydrogen Europe, Jorgo Chatzimarkakis, predicted that clean hydrogen would be contributing 20% of the energy mix by 2050, substituting coal, oil and some natural gas.

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Chatzimarkakis argued that hydrogen’s strength is its versatility. “In the industrial sector hydrogen is already used as a feedstock today, so the fertilizer, petrochemical and refining sectors would replace grey hydrogen with green or clean hydrogen, which would have an immediate positive effect and that’s the low hanging fruit.”

Next will be the steel and chemicals industries where grey hydrogen is currently being used and where the substitution of green hydrogen would have an immediate positive effect on reducing CO2 emissions.

Chatzimarkakis also points to the heating and mobility sectors as making progress in the use of clean hydrogen.

He notes that some sectors are waiting for larger volumes of clean hydrogen to become available.

“There will be plenty of applications that are not growing, and we'll be ready when the big volumes are there. We expect the big volumes as of 2025 until 2035. So that's basically the ramp-up phase - at the moment we are [in] the kick-off phase.”

By that stage Chatzimarkakis thinks there will be hydrogen applications also in the domestic heating sector with hydrogen being consumed by normal citizens.

In the interview, Chatzimarkakis shares his firm belief that the cost of technology related to hydrogen production will fall.

"Indeed, we talk about the champagne price that we see now. And hydrogen needs to go down to Prosecco level and then we would need to go down to table water and even less. The point here is we will see prices going down.”

“Hydrogen as such will have its price and its derivatives, because hydrogen is basically one of the driving forces also for other markets, synthetic fuels, ammonia, which can be used as a synthetic fuel or as a feedstock in the fertilizing world. And all this is interrelated and will have a quite big impact on the price as such, not to forget storage capacities.”

Watch the full interview to also hear about the different ways to produce zero carbon hydrogen and in combination with other industries, achieving negative emissions.