Future costs of hydrogen: a quantitative review

Abstract

Hydrogen is the key energy carrier of the future. Numerous industrial processes incorporate hydrogen in their transformation towards climate neutrality. To date, the high cost of producing hydrogen from renewable sources has been a major barrier to its widespread adoption. Inspired by these two aspects, many researchers have published cost predictions for hydrogen. This review provides an overview of the extant literature of more than 7000 publications in the last two decades concerned with the topic. After removing articles that do not provide explicit hydrogen production cost projections for the 2020 to 2050 time horizon, 89 articles remain and are analyzed in detail. The review identifies 832 cost forecast data points among these studies and categorizes the data points according to various parameters such as production region, production process and publication year of the study. Through a linear regression, a main trajectory for the development of hydrogen production costs can be derived. The costs of hydrogen from electrolysis are reduced on the basis of this trajectory, starting from the reference 5.3 € per kg, in 2020, to 4.4 € per kg, in 2030, and to 2.7 € per kg in 2050. The costs for natural gas-based hydrogen are almost constant on a globally aggregated basis. There are also major regional and process-related differences. In 2050, Asia has the lowest average costs of the regions analyzed at 1.8 € per kg and production by alkaline electrolysis with average costs of 2.0 € per kg appears to be the most cost-effective electrolysis technology. Although studies show a high degree of variation, it is evident from this review that the trend within certain investigation parameters is well defined. Therefore, researchers and practitioners can use this review to set up further analyses that depend on future hydrogen costs.