With any nascent technology, appropriate scale-up is needed to drive economies of scale, accelerate market growth and ultimately prove success. As the world looks to transform the energy system through the use of clean technologies, including green hydrogen, we must ensure that these solutions are durable, reliable and—importantly—scalable.

The benefits of a gradual scale-up for new technologies become clear when we reflect on lessons from our past. Take the global wind industry, for example. Today, we see a total generation capacity of 650GW and 19pc year-on-year growth, but looking back on the industry’s early stages, we see a very different picture.

In the late 1980s, Germany’s Growian turbine—the world’s largest wind turbine at that point—generated global buzz for its novel technological features and robust generation capacity. However, after failing to trial operations at scale, Growian proved unable to achieve its once promising potential and was ultimately deemed both technologically and commercially infeasible. Now referenced as somewhat of a cautionary tale within the wind industry, Growian’s attempt to reach profitable installation sizes before taking intermediate steps thwarted the technology’s ability to fulfil market expectations.

Lessons for green hydrogen

Long-heralded as a game-changing fuel for the energy transition, there are now global ambitions to ramp up green hydrogen production, with the EU targeting 40GW of installed electrolysis capacity by 2040. But, if electrolyser technologies are pushed too fast, too soon, the fuel’s large-scale decarbonisation applications could fail to be realised, risking yet another ‘false dawn’.

Recent projections by the Hydrogen Council find that building the hydrogen economy will require approximately $280bn in investment by 2030, a figure that could be substantially reduced by utilising a scaling-up approach. This means starting small.

Initial green hydrogen projects must adhere to a logical timeline, trialling electrolysis at a MW, rather than GW, scale. Giving the greenlight to projects with 30-50MW of electrolysis capacity—such as Raffinerie Heide’s Reallabor Westküste100 project—will allow time for the technology to mature, production to stabilise and running costs to fall. Once sufficient information has been gathered from this initial stage, projects can then progress to 100-200MW electrolysis capacity, 300-400MW, and so on. By following this approach, green hydrogen projects will be delivered on time, within budget and up to quality.

Scaling-up at the right speed will unlock long-term technological and cost efficiencies, allowing green hydrogen to enjoy economies of scale. This will, in turn, unleash the fuel’s capabilities for large-scale, industrial decarbonisation, meaningfully contributing to global climate goals.

As with any technology, we must always be mindful of the risks of scaling up too quickly. However, I am confident that if we adopt a sustainable, responsible approach to building the hydrogen economy through scale, we will deliver hydrogen’s promise of powering our low-carbon future.

Juergen Wollschlaeger is the CEO of Heide Refinery