Hydrogen and fuel cell stocks

 As per the International Energy Agency’s “Global Hydrogen Review 2022”, the demand for hydrogen reached 94 million tonnes in 2021, up from the pre-pandemic demand of 91 million tonnes in 2019. Majority of the higher hydrogen demand stems from traditional uses, such as refining and industrial applications. New steel projects are being declared swiftly, just one year after the successful demonstration of utilizing hydrogen in direct reduction of iron. Hydrogen fuel cell-powered trains are now running in Germany, and there are hundreds of on-going projects that are testing the use of hydrogen and hydrogen derivatives in shipping and the power sector. Hydrogen has the potential to create 3.5 GW power by 2030. IEA forecasts that hydrogen demand could skyrocket to 115 million tonnes by 2030, and about 2 million tonnes would be attributed to new applications. Around 200 million tonnes of hydrogen is required by 2030 to meet the net zero emissions goal by 2050.

According to GlobalData, a renowned data and analytics company, the global production capacity of green hydrogen exceeded 109 kilo tons per annum (ktpa) in 2022. This indicates an impressive growth of 44% when compared to 2021. In February 2023, Andres Angulo, Energy Analyst at GlobalData, said: 

“During 2022, over 393 deals related to hydrogen were closed, representing a significant increase compared to 277 deals registered in 2021. This shows an upward trend in the low-carbon hydrogen market development, which could be decisive in achieving over 111 million tons per annum (mtpa) capacity worldwide by 2030. However, the partnerships represented 66% of the deals last year, and the number of deals decreased after Q2 2022 to numbers even below those seen in the same quarter in 2021. This could have been due to the companies trying to strengthen their core business and diversify the investment risk given the global economic situation.”