It’s Time for Hydrogen to Revolutionize Energy

There has been plenty of talk about hydrogen energy in the past few years. Nel Hydrogen CEO Jon André Løkke says it’s time for action.

“To be honest, I don’t think we need more attention now. I think, now, we need to deliver,” Løkke said. “We really need to start to deliver, see some projects, make sure they’re executed, make sure they start to run, show that the business gets flies. Then, maybe we deserve some more attention, but I think we’ve received all the attention we can expect for the time being.

“Now, we need to deliver.”

There is little reason to think Nel and the hydrogen energy industry won’t be able to achieve their lofty goals. While the COVID-19 pandemic dealt a temporary blow to operations, many nations’ recovery plans have included acknowledgments that more needs to be done to decrease reliance on fossil fuel and explore solutions like hydrogen.

Beyond that, hydrogen is beginning to become not just a cleaner solution, but a more economic one than its rivals.

“The big difference is you’re going to hit certain very important thresholds. There are two main forces pulling together at the same time,” Løkke said. “First of all is the cost-reduction of the equipment.”

“When you combine that with the fact that renewable energy keeps going down and the costs of renewables have come down incredibly fast and continue to go down … when you look at building new power plants now, it’s cheaper in many places to build solar and wind than coal-fired power plants.”

That means fossil parity, putting renewable hydrogen on level footing with fossil hydrogen.

It may not be long until Nel is producing exactly the results that have been talked about.