Executives of Germany’s leading manufacturing and energy industries have warned that “green” hydrogen is still far too expensive compared with other fuels, raising doubts over a key plank of the country’s efforts to cut carbon emissions.
Miguel Ángel López Borrego, chief executive of German steel major Thyssenkrupp, warned that unless the cost of hydrogen made from renewable energy fell, the company would have to resort to fossil fuels to run a steel plant which was intended to be its flagship green facility in the industrial town of Duisberg.
Germany, an industrial powerhouse and the EU’s largest greenhouse gas emitter, had laid out a series of bold targets for producing and importing the fuel, underpinned by tens of billions in subsidies and loans. But faced with sluggish economic growth and trade competition from China, Europe’s biggest economy is joining a broader global slowdown in its adoption.