So what is going on? What is causing this incredible jump and market sentiment?

To add a little more to this “what is going on” let me do something else.

Why do I compare Plug Power to Apple in past years? It is simply how its stock has rapidly accelerated away in the past year or perhaps the growing expectation of sizable growth to come, on new products and market penetration. 

A year ago, Plug Power struggled to raise money, but it has been executing on a plan consistently in the past few years that is beginning to pay off.

Plug Power has still yet to make a profit, the likelihood is even in its next quarterly round it will still not be making a profit, but the “market sentiment” for all clean energy is very bullish, and the work Plug Power has put into its 2020 activities is generating this market excitement.

What’s going on? Time to delve a little deeper. Let me offer my longer read evaluation taking 10 to 12 minutes of your time.

A short story of Plug Power, background and some crystal gazing

To quote Jim Cramer, host of Mad Money on CNBC, this week states: “ Plug Power needed money for years and years. Now, though, because of a combination of fund-raises in the stock market and SK, Plug Power doesn’t need the money. It’s free to become a large energy company itself enjoying the lowering electric costs that make its technology too cheap to be mind-bogglingly stupid. You could have called me a hydrogen doubter. Now that it has scale call me a hydrogen believer and I believe in the Plug Power solution to make it all happen.” (source)

Now that enthusiasm needs a fair amount of ‘rowing back’ as current market evaluation needs to be equated in sustaining product delivery.  But, yes, Plug Power can be at the (next) beginning of growing, as a large energy company, it is certainly in the right place at the right time.

Green hydrogen is seen to be a critical enabler of resolving the carbon issues we are facing in a rapidly warming planet. Plug Power has been selectively ‘picking off’ segments of the market that need fossil-free solutions to be part of the clean fuel economy. That focus on customer satisfaction points of speed, scaling and seeking best-in-class status is building a sound winning formula.

The  Plug Power reputation builder: Material Handling

Plug Power has gone after the material handling market, especially replacing the batteries on forklift trucks and all the big players who have real needs to bring their carbon footprint down, such as Walmart, Home Depot, and Amazon warehouses, have replaced their batteries with hydrogen fuel cells.

Getting to this point has required Plug Power to achieve scale in converting hydrogen to clean fuel into the fuel-cell battery and made its technology and deployment to be convenient and easy to apply in demanding operational environments. A little like Apple went after scale, pervasive, easer to use (or apply in this case) and ever-present or available to simply adapt to the job on hand.

Plug Power has also been focusing on e-Mobility.

As Plug Power has been rapidly developing a reputation for having the real experience to deploy fuel cells and handle hydrogen. Its USA focus and perhaps success recipe is now at the point of “going global.”

Hydrogen refuelling stations will be a huge business as LCV’s, Trucks, Buses, FC Trains all gather for providing hydrogen momentum. Plug Power is presently expanding in Europe and already aligning with different partners like Alstom delivering a growing Green Hydrogen Network and product solutions in fuel cells that build out their portfolio.

Today, 12th January 2021, in a press release a joint venture between Groupe Renault and Plug Power join forces to become leaders in Hydrogen LCV.

• Memorandum Of Understanding (MOU) signed to launch a 50-50 joint-venture (JV) based in France by the end of the first half of 2021, targeting over 30% share of the fuel cell-powered light commercial vehicle (LCV) market in Europe.
• Joint-venture will establish in France state-of-the-art innovation and manufacturing capabilities for hydrogen fuel cell systems and their integration in vehicles.
• The partnership provides a unique value proposition: turn-key fuel cell vehicle solutions with hydrogen fuel, refuelling infrastructures and services.
• This strategic project supports the decarbonization of mobility in Europe with the adoption of clean energy solutions, and the creation of innovating value-generating activities in France, including an industrial footprint in a promising market, business know-how and intellectual property in this new field of technology

This strategic JV will position Groupe Renault and Plug Power to become key players in Europe in the research and development (R&D), transformation, manufacturing and sale of fuel cell-powered vehicles and hydrogen turn-key solutions in the coming years.

The JV intends to offer unique, comprehensive, differentiated products and solutions to the LCV market, designed around 3 key pillars:

• R&D: Groupe Renault and Plug Power intend to establish an Innovation Center for the development of fuel cell technology and hydrogen fuel cell LCV vehicles based on existing and future Groupe Renault platforms. The initial focus will be on the heavy van segment utilizing the Traffic and Master vehicle platforms. This centre will be unique in combining R&D efforts of fuel cell and vehicles with integrated engineering teams.
• Manufacturing: the joint-venture will combine the vehicle manufacturing capabilities of Groupe Renault with the fuel cell and hydrogen system manufacturing knowledge of Plug Power, establishing a vertically integrated fuel cell stack and system manufacturing centre in France for integration into LCV vehicle platforms. In addition, this manufacturing centre will provide hydrogen refuelling systems, a key part of the hydrogen ecosystem.
• Sales: this partnership will create a hydrogen vehicle eco-system solution company that offers vehicles, hydrogen fueling stations, hydrogen fuel, and services to customers. This comprehensive solutions approach will accelerate adoption by commercial fleets.

The further ambitions beyond fuel cells are ambitions in the future

Focusing on bringing Hydrogen to the market, refuelling stations for fuel cell vehicles can also be a building out to being a source at Sea Ports and Airports to build out hydrogen or derivatives.

Then the big ones for Industrial Green Hydrogen Solutions

The P2P, P2X and P2M are opening up as diverse markets for Hydrogen as decarbonization initiatives “kick-in” and cost-competitive hydrogen to existing fuels (H2$/kg decreases markets open up).

These possible markets are seen by Plug Power in Stationary Energy Storage, Off-Grid Applications for P2P, and Ammonia, Steel,  Chemicals forming the P2X markets where alternatives need to find technology and fuel replacement application solutions, and finally, P2M of a rapidly growing fuel cell market for Electric Vehicles globally.

Plug Power also sees Data Centres, Micro Grids for Energy Storage ideal for applying green hydrogen. It turns them all green or carbon-free. No issue there.

The Hydrogen Markets potential is huge.

Some estimates put the size of Green Hydrogen at a $200 billion addressable market. There are even larger numbers I have seen.

Yet Electrolyzers are going to be the key for delivering to this potential.

Like the Smart Phone for Apple, the Electrolyzer( read Show me the Electrolyzer)  is the catalyst for the whole Energy System.

The price of H2 determines each market entry point. As Wind and Solar continue to gain scale and forces reductions in energy prices, the renewable presence across all energy sectors brings the potential for significant hydrogen to be added into the renewable mix. The triggering in prices depends on each market, but for hydrogen needed to be converted as a viable, sustainable fuel alternative that needs to get to Euro 2.50/kg and at real scale towards Euro 1.75/kg are the target points example, here in Europe.

The input cost, be this electricity, wind and solar need to keep falling to work with Hydrogen solutions to be competitive. Clearly, to achieve green hydrogen, Plug Powers end focus point, the conversion to Hydrogen needs a highly competitive Electrolyzer in price and what it can produce as output.

Plug Power is committed to the proton exchange membrane (PEM) for its electrolyzer solutions as this is where by using green electricity, from Wind or Solar to electrolyzer water into hydrogen offers a carbon-free alternative.

This PEM Electrolyzer solution applies electricity to water, splits water and oxygen to separate for the final fuel need of hydrogen. Most hydrogen today is from steam reforming methods by natural gas or coal and carry very significant carbon emission footprints. Other Electrolyzer solutions are fossil fuel-driven.

Solving the PEM Electrolyzer to be able to scale at a commercially attractive price (affordability) so it can be applied to all the Hydrogen markets is the Smart Phone equivalent in the Energy sector. A real solution to the energy transition.

individual electrolyzer units, called stacks need to become increasingly efficient to process one gigawatt of electrolysis per year.

Today that efficiency of electrolyzers is still really at a “pilot ramping up learning scale”stage,  with tens of megawatts per stack. Technology needs to change away from stacks or stacks need to get into in the range of hundreds of megawatts each by 2025, and eventually move to even larger units.

The next decade will see the evolution of technology and engineering to bring scale to the Electrolyzer. The companies equipped to invest in the research and development will be the new Wind equivalents like today’s Vesta or Gamesa.

Plug Power is building a PEM Giga factory but so are many others building their hydrogen presence. It is not the manufacturing of Electrolyzers per se,  it is the technology breakthrough needed to scale these. Has Plug Power got the necessary “technical and scientific chops” to deliver breakthrough solutions?

This technology breakthrough on the Electrolyzer is my point of concern for Plug Power.

They are going the stack route by simply working on increasing stacks based on existing, proven solutions. Still, I wonder, without any great detailed technical understanding from my side, if they have the answer to scaling hydrogen outputs away from simply stack building? Or are they simply just increasing the existing stacks? That will not work for the sheer amount of hydrogen needed globally.

Source Plug Power

They are investing in a new PEM Technology Center that will focus on the parts of an Electrolyzer but is this application of thinking in stacks being locked into the existing “seen” solution? I feel so, but time will tell.

Source. Plug Power Symposium Presentation September 2020

Competing with the Industrial Solution Giants

For me Siemens or ThyssenKrupp as two Industrial solution giants, both known for their industrial-scale solutions. At present they are more likely to find the abilities internally for technology breakthrough, and greater understanding for larger-scale industrial application in segments such as P2P, P2X and P2M as they both have the known capabilities and competencies that the Energy Industries have come to rely upon and trust.

The move to a Mature Energy solution provider is Plug Powers major challenge.

Plug Power’s difference is it has focused on specific segments where existing solutions of Electrolyzer output for Hydrogen works to build fuel cell capabilities. To think big industrial scale for being the solution provider for Iron and Steel, Chemicals or any of the worlds huge industry plants is a totally different ball game. Can they? I feel not in their present form or organizational design.

Will we be seeing a Nokia and Apple transformation moment? 

If Plug Power sees itself as the leader in the deployment of green hydrogen solutions (present vision statement), then I can relate to this if it focuses on Fuel Cells only, but I struggle on the greater green hydrogen potentials where the Power-to- X as the bigger prize.

Will Plug Power stay with Fuel Cells, and Green Hydrogen solutions (electrolyzer sized to this market segment) or will they venture into the huge Hydrogen market that industrial solutions give. The Electrolyzer thinking needs a giant step change for Plug Power. Still, why not?

Like Apple, it is all about visions, imagination, determination, focus, application and bringing together the technology and manufacturing solutions together in groundbreaking solutions and strategic partnerships,  at a point of time access to money and gaining financial market sentiment.

Plug Power is focused exclusively on Green Hydrogen, it has a fighting chance through imaginative partnerships and staged focus points.

Both Siemens Energy and Thyssenkrupp have “wicked” legacy in their present energy solution portfolio’s. As established large Energy solution providers, with a huge legacy of past Energy Solutions, can they be agile enough, inventive enough or able to plough the money into green hydrogen and PEM Electrolyzers in a dedicated fashion? Plug Power possibly can, but it is a bigger, more demanding stretch than their current plans or resources to compete in engineering, technology and application understanding.

Visions come and go, a new one needs to be articulated by Plug Power now.

Yet all things change within a few short months. In listening to Plug Powers CEO, Andy Marsh where he outlined their vision last September in their symposium, it already seems really inadequate to what has happened to them in these past few months. Forging new global or regional partnerships can radically change the positioning.

Plug Power needs a rapid update of its vision now.

Why? Plug Power raised $1 billion in bought equity to fund its plan to complete the first US-wide networked green hydrogen production facilities to supply fuel-cell products. The capital raised with Morgan Stanley gave Plug Power total cash post-closing balance to $1.7 billion.

Plug Power is well funded for its next rapid expansion from recent announcements.

Early this year (2021) Plug Power raised $1.5 billion from South Korea’s SK Group to enter the Asian market. SK Group is the third-largest company in South Korea. It has formed a strategic partnership to accelerate the hydrogen economy in South Korea and the plans to have six million fuel cell electric vehicles and 1,200 refilling stations in place by 2040. 

SK Group liked the Plug Power turnkey solution for using green clean hydrogen. That injection of $1.5 billion gives 9.9% stake in the fuel cell provider as part of this partnership to reach Asian markets.

To quote Andy March, the Plug Power CEO ” “SK Group has an established strategy for building out the hydrogen economy in South Korea and beyond,”. He goes on to say “The current relationship with SK Group offers immediate strategic benefits to Plug Power to accelerate its expansion into Asian markets – and is intended to result in a formal joint venture (JV) by 2022.”

Combined with the already outlined plans for Europe detailed in that September Symposium Plug Power are accelerating their Fuel Cell core business of EMobility and Material Handling significantly, why beyond market expectation.

The market sentiment is high for Plug Power, now they need to deliver

The market reaction was not just the significant jump in Plug Power share, but it still struggles to make profits due to its recent expansion plans and inability to scale to meet demand.

Market valuations, comparing apples with pears or are we?

Presently Plug Power market value is $24.9 billion, bigger than utility giants like PG&E Corp and Consolidated Edison Inc.  Remarkably Plug Power was worth about $1 billion (Bloomberg) a year ago!.

Siemens Energy recently spun off from Siemens AG and has a present market worth of Euro 24.2 billion or $29.4 billion at the time of writing. Still, the market believes it is trading well below its true market value.

Today the market valuations for Plug Power looks high, and the Siemens Energy seem low.

The pulling away point comes in managing the portfolio, and the energy focuses each has. Plug Power is exclusively focused on green hydrogen solutions and fuel cells. Siemens has a diverse portfolio of past, present and future energy solutions. Gas-Power generation and grid transmissions make up over 50% of the portfolio.

Hydrogen will be the accelerator, as it is the renewable clean energy future and the markets are focusing on this energy transition as where the “smart energy money” goes. The one that focuses on hydrogen seen by the market is where the money is going.

Market sentiment can change overnight.

If Siemens has a PEM Electrolyzer solution covering all green hydrogen demands from fuel cells, networks of hydrogen needs, and industrial solutions, it pulls away from its current market valuation.

If Plug Power pulls its “smartphone” equivalent of its Electrolyzer solutions out of its portfolio hat, it continues towards that suggested positioning offered by Jim Cramer of being “free to become a large energy company.”

Will it? It is all to play for, for both. Scale, technology innovation and scope of renewable offering makes the difference

2021 is the big scaling year for Plug Power

2020 has been an amazing year for Plug Power, maybe moving towards scale in Hydrogen and the solutions but the sheer scale of its task to come is the challenges it sets itself in 2021 for the next five years.

The present ones articulated by Andy March, the CEO, back in September 2020, need to be less visionary and aspiration to attract the finance. It needs to switch to a roadmap on focused execution.

It needs to extend out in why its Plug Power turnkey solution for using green clean hydrogen is proving highly attractive to its future relationships and partnerships to grow the business.

Plug Power in my mind can hit real scale but…..

 This will be determined by its detailed roadmap and its portfolio resolutions and progress with its clarity on its market focus on solutions (fuel cells vs industrial, for example). This is the biggest call Plug Power will be making this year. Sizing up to market sentiment and expectations. A really major shift for the top management to outline succinctly.

To realize that ambition of being both a leader in fuel cell technology and green hydrogen and the bigger scope of green hydrogen beyond fuel cells, it has eluded too is the call needed.

The building blocks to drive growth need a sharper clarity now that raising equity, possibly beyond internal expectations has taken place.

Watch Plug Power with growing interest, I am even more than in the past

**Note: the announcement between Groupe Renault and Plug Power added later in the day of posting this and parts of the post relating to Electrolyzers was updated or corrected on 14th January 2021.

The post Are we seeing the Apple of Hydrogen in Plug Power? first appeared on Innovating the Energy Transition.

I really value these reflective periods. They allow you to simply “recalibrate” so you can at least start the new year off on a more purposeful set of objectives, those strategic stakes in the ground. Of course, you can argue these can simply end up as new year resolutions, often broken in the first few weeks, but hopefully, these objectives stay anchored into the ground as a firm intent, they become the foundation to build out from. Well, that’s my intent.

When I reflect back on the 2020 year, I have recognised the needs to make a significant energy change. As I posted my critical top six energy developments in 2020 in this recent post “Energy Progress- the best of 2020 leads to a great 2021″ it triggered a deeper evaluation to lead out to 2021.

The key to 2021, in my opinion, will be a real breakthrough year of innovation, based on technology invention.

“2020 advanced the commitment to the shift from fossil fuel to renewables that has real momentum in the coming years. 2021 will be the breakthrough year where the energy transition has the unstoppable forces happening.”

We are all wanting to look forward, to a different, a more engaged world in 2021.

Reviewing my recent activities around Energy Transition.

Reflecting back, moving forward. In the past two-plus years, the whole Energy Transition has been my platform to apply my innovation learning and ecosystem thinking. The Energy story has really changed my focus on where I offer support.

Firstly in December 2019, I launched the site www.innovating4energy.com and have posted over 50 articles in this twelve-month period across the whole energy spectrum. This dedicated site enables me to consolidate my thinking previously spread out over different posting sites and gave me the dedicated focus point to build my view of the energy transition, described below.

In this year, 2020, I was singled out to be in the top ten energy transition influencers by Onalytica in their Who’s in IIoT in there recent September report.

In November 2020, I was delighted to be included within the top ten hydrogen influencers that included @mariofornarelli @h2gazette @hydrogenenergy @reuters @climate @hydrogencouncil @h2europe @siemens_energy @ft and finally myself@paul4innovating. That seems great company to me!

The link to this hydrogen evaluation is via Node Graph Gallery. It provides a detailed graph representing a network of 4 588 Twitter users whose recent tweets contained “hydrogen energy” or replied to or mentioned in those tweets. It is an interesting visualization to help sort out social media and thought leaders. The evaluation was undertaken in November 2020.

Ecosystems are now becoming essential for managing the Energy Transition. My ecosystem focus is relatively narrow on Industrial IoT & the Energy Transition but it has a significant business impact when applied. I was delighted to be recognized in the Ecosystem top thought leaders on Thinkers 360, a premier thought leader and influencer marketplace for recognition across different social media channels 

Moving forward in 2021

I think the business model will radically change. Ecosystems where collaborations will become increasingly prevalent and platforms where digitalization will advance our awareness, efficiencies and effectiveness will be central to lasting change. Innovation will simply advance due to the exchanges through digital enablement between collaborators and having more diversity of opinion and seeking out that network effect. Innovation in new technology will enable the energy transition even more in the coming years.

The Energy Industry has to “embrace” both the ability to collaborate with each other to search and explore radical, innovative solutions, and that is where Ecosystem design has its real power. Also, by deploying more a platform thinking Energy solution providers and sellers will value data as the increased currency that a more diverse energy system requires to be effective and efficient.

Ecosystems and platforms are becoming vital for the Energy Transition, especially where collaborations and digitalization form an increasing transformation part.

Advancing my degrees  of separation

When you are facing complexity you need to break it down into its component parts to evaluate it, to make greater sense of those parts and attempt to bring it back into a new sense of order.

This site of www.innovating4energy.com was part of that deliberate design as the energy transition has become a central focus of mine. Yet to deliver understanding you have to apply your thinking to the other contributing parts, my degrees of separation.

Ecosystems are the way for business to evolve and have been critical to my decision to, again, separate my thinking, and provide a dedicated posting site ecosystems4innovators.  This allows that separation, identification and focal need and provide a better understanding of the value of ecosystem design.

For the platform understanding, I have again separated my thinking onto another dedicated posting site for building thinking out on a new integrated IIoT innovation engagement platform “Connecting digital, innovation and industrial” providing insights and thinking on platforms as my focal point of offering.

A final step of separation for my increased “energy purpose” has been this increased recognition building the internet of energy to provide a more focused view of digitalization within the energy system.  This will be the real enabler in constructing and layering a new energy infrastructure, where the digital and physical run in parallel, and need a high dependence on each other to design and deliver affordable, sustaining power across the entire energy system.

Innovation is always to the fore.

Lastly, in dedicated focus areas, the Energy Transition acceleration will come from increasing innovation and the constant search for improving technology or discovering breakthroughs. Innovation needs a dedicated investment appreciation.

For me, innovation has been a core area for the past twenty years. Evaluating, stimulating, encouraging, and organizing innovation by building the capacities, capabilities and competencies innovation management requires. Innovation is the catalyst of change within the Energy Transition and my critical value-adding point.

I have been providing insights, advice and concepts for innovation and many of these can be found on my dedicated posting site paul4innovating

Turning all my research towards commercial reality is ready to be applied

The last part of my 2020 year has been the sheer determination to follow up on research within the energy transition.

I have been building an extensive library of topics, articles and reports, hundreds of GIFs, partly built into an extensive Microsoft OneNote energy system and also within an expanding filing system. This work has become a real battle to index and build, but it is getting extensive and highly valuable.

For me, 2021 needs to be realization time.

My current work is working through how and where I can offer a return for my investments and provide clients’ propositions that offer value, impact and knowledge.

In these recent weeks, I am trying to work out the type of Energy Transition Service I can offer, that has a value that provides market-driven insights and can piece together in-depth reports, outlined roadmaps, and understanding of the options that the energy changes are creating for us all to understand.

I finish on my 2020 Energy Progress stating my energy journey, and what it means to me as we enter 2021.

Energy Transition needs to be generated in different ways, my positioning:

• Emphasis the value/impact of innovation within the Energy Transition (as my core). It builds out the potential to change.
• A consistent focus on being seen as a Business Builder and offer perspectives, opinions, and outlooks
• My belief that there are different aspects of activism to bring focus to this transformation and it is engaging across all of these avenues
• The scope, pace, and directions of change need a sense of urgency, and my role is to help accelerate that journey.
• The broader perspective, putting content into context, giving knowledge and insight leads to making more informed decisions, that’s my positioning.
• I see myself as the Outsider looking into the Energy World.

This focus translates into value positioning:

• The (absolute) needs within the Energy Systems require solutions and change does lie in creating impact, understanding and viable alternatives.
• The significant potential for new market design, different business models and system operation solutions offers a real business opportunity.
• The fascination with identifying new enabling technologies and exploring and exploiting these
• The Energy Transition is one of today’s big challenges in energy, climate, and our planet and needs clarity for potential clients on how it can be leveraged.
• There is so much societal need for this energy transition, it needs framing and building differently, so it attracts stakeholders to join in. The value of building that communicating positioning with the additional external perspective strengthens the narrative and broader identification.
• The desire to add more impact, understanding, and awareness to the Energy Transition, to give greater momentum to internal teams provides additional momentum and resolution.

My 2021 purpose is providing different points of insightful and impactful design in Energy transition.

I cover the Energy Transition through innovation, ecosystem and platform thinking by (deliberate) design. Interested to learn more, no time like now.

My best of Energy Wishes to you in 2021. Let’s search for synergies and making connections that are mutual and rewarding.

The post Restating my energy purpose for delivering in 2021 first appeared on Innovating the Energy Transition.

Being restricted, not able to travel has its benefits, you gain more time to climb into your own reading, research or passions. For me, this has been my “Energy Transition” year.

The sheer amount of articles, reports or webinars around all aspects of energy have been partly overwhelming but significant in their reference and knowledge gaining. This intensity of purpose towards the energy transition has given me an enormous boost in its understanding.

When I reflect back on this 2020 year, recognising the needs to make a significant energy change has really gained a very high awareness.

2020 advanced the commitment to the shift from fossil fuel to renewables that has real momentum in the coming years. 2021 will be the breakthrough year where the energy transition has the unstoppable forces happening.

Let me summarize my top six energy developments that built-in 2020 that have given a potentially lasting momentum to the energy transition that will, in my opinion, have a real impact in 2021. Plus my seventh one, a personal one, boosted my energy understanding and confirmed a growing recognition by others’ of my contributions.

Firstly, let’s look at my top six energy enablers to significantly impact the energy transition that is being undertaken. Each will have a massive impact on 2021.

ONE – We are entering the autumn of fossil-fuel generation

Coal, Oil and Gas are really on the ropes, fighting to stay relevant against the onslaught of renewables. Coal is on its way out that is for sure, the early retirements of dozens of coal plants in 2020.

Global coal consumption was such way down due to Covid-19 and renewables’ pace. Growing positioning has become far more competitive and offers real confirmation that renewables can bridge much of the energy demand.

Gas is not so far behind. The scrapping of plans to replace coal with gas and opt for clear energy portfolios and cancelled previously planned pipelines are among the issues that are putting huge pressure on the Gas Turbine business.

Power generation will be the major battlefield in 2021 to see if the “interim” argument, the bridge, takes hold or the longer-term one, of going straight for renewables wins.

The issue of a legacy for investing in Gas Turbines that have a life of thirty years or more of normally useful lifetime returns is at risk. They could quickly become stranded assets or wrongly positions in the new energy designed a system where renewables are more central.

I feel early retirement debates and required decisions to not invest in fossil fuel generation will dominate 2021. Fossil fuel-fired generation is heading for a very tough year in 2021.

TWO – The commitment to Carbon Neutrality

The commitments of both China and now the incoming US administrations recommitting to the Paris Agreement is highly significant. The whole raft of more vigorous policies, support programs and regulatory measures to tackle the CO2 emissions and the increased “drumbeat” to decarbonization will become much louder in 2021. Governments really need to “drive” change.

The continued push to carbon-free electricity is happening at an increasing rate, with the application and acceleration of clean energy technologies, and the power grids to manage and run increasingly on zero-carbon power. The energy system is being argumented with increased sector coupling management, and increase storage alternatives will be one of the top investment focus in 2021. Decarbonizing is central to all we do.

THREE.- The Race towards Hydrogen at Scale requires lower cost points.

For me, hydrogen became the big talking point of 2020. We have been deluged with Hydrogen opinions, suggested options and so much advice on how and when this “hydrogen economy” emerges into one that gives real commercial scale. Hydrogen is moving towards the alternative energy source to solve the harder-to-abate areas, bridge the wind and solar variability, and provide transport fuel alternatives in power-to-x solutions.

Green hydrogen is the place to get to, as quickly as possible. What needs to be announced in 2021 is significant breakthroughs in electrolyzer technology that can significantly upscale volume and show the promise of rapid cost reduction. The scaling trajectory will have a similar pathway that solar and wind took to get to the point where they are today where costs are required to fall dramatically to gain acceptance and adoption.

The disruptive technology breakthroughs for green hydrogen need to be delivered in 2021 to kick-start the Hydrogen revolution.

In 2021 the Hydrogen Council has to make some hard decisions. Does it continue to back all Hydrogen shades (grey, blue, green) or shape its memberships focus to one and only one Hydrogen choice, that of Green hydrogen?  Green Hydrogen is generated by the different renewables and technology solutions available; mostly solar, hydro, and wind feeding into electrolyzers.

Investment decisions and technology clarity need to be fully determined on Hydrogen Those decision and clear pathways for Hydrogen need to be nailed down in 2021. 

FOUR – The focus will shift further to reducing Greenhouse Gases in 2021

The transport industry, aviation, and shipping need to make definite inroads to find their fuel alternatives in 2021. There are options, but a winner or two needs to emergy and the industries consolidate behind these.

Methane Gas has to be given much sharper attention too, and that continues to push the oil and gas industries into getting their emissions in real shape. All greenhouse emissions in building, in industry, in transport need to be “forced” to act by Government edict and have clear time commitments to make the necessary changes to clean energy.

Bans on Gas Vehicles needs even more legislation incentive, the two or so decades needs shortening, so the laggards in the car industry finally get the incentive to commit.

2021 will see Gas Emissions becoming central to policy and which technological breakthroughs being determined as the ones to put the investment capital behind.

The one really grey area for me is translating all the talk of carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) into real compelling and globally commercial solutions. If they can’t see the shift to decarbonization through renewables and green hydrogen, all the political, technological, and industry solution providers combined weight behind them to provide commercially viable CCUS solutions with blue hydrogen takes increasing hold on future energy designs. CCUS needs to have clear, scalable and proven solutions.

FIVE – Getting our Storage, Battery and Grids capable of delivering Electricity Stability

As we recognize the largescale deployment of energy storage, this has the real potential of overturning any business as usual for any electricity market needs. If it is to satisfy instantaneous demand, smooth out discrepancies between generation and loads, provide flexibility in load shifting and position both batteries and storage as the ancillary service for managing all the present and future options in power generation and consumption self-consumption.

As batteries and storage costs continue to fall and the amount of energy these can store will shift the economics of power across the grid,  displacing and disrupting plants and grids in their design, flexibility, and capabilities. Storage will upend many industry structures.

Storage system design will take a more central role, where lithium-ion, ölead-acid, flow-cells and other emerging technologies will optimise value to the needs on hand. Storage is recognized as giving two critical aspects of any energy transition, resilience and insurance to manage stability and fluctuations.

Energy storage and battery hold a critical part of the future, and 2021 will see these energy-storage systems become broader solution sets, not one-off positioning. They will become an integrated design feature, and this will emerge in 2021.

SIX– The Financial Energy Commitment Year of 2021 needs to be substantial

Financial institutions and Banks are finally making their move. Banks always want risk certainty, and they have really struggled over the investments at scale in emerging technology or alternative fuel solutions. The pretence (no other word for this, in my opinion) of their deep commitment to the energy transition has been lacking.

Banks and Financial Institutions should be “called out” and recognize their pivotal role in ‘forcing’ reducing carbon intensity as primary investors. They need to move with greater intent and purpose away from fossil fuel-related investments to renewable ones and resolve to back pioneering technologies in greater ways.

The boom of investment return needs to be seen, where Government Economic policy sends that powerful signal to the markets to commit in deeper, sustaining ways. We need to get past piecemeal or pilot projects to assess risk over a protracted time, we need bolder investment visions in investments in clean energy solutions.

Banks need to reorganize their portfolio of energy investments in radically different ways. Taking carbon intensity reduction as the core investment focus does begin to regroup individual segments in a new way of evaluation. 2021

Banks and Financial Institutions in 2021 need to finally come off the fence of backing both fossil fuel and renewables and make this reduced carbon intensity central to their investment decisions going forward.

SEVEN – My seventh one is my own deliverables in 2020 that I believe will build-out and lead to a significant “return” in 2021 for all who want to engage.

This reflection of my 2020 will be in my opening post of 2021, entitled “restating my energy purpose”.

My best of Energy Wishes to you in 2021. Let’s search for synergies and making connections that are mutual and rewarding.

The post Energy Progress- the best of 2020 leads to a great 2021. first appeared on Innovating the Energy Transition.

image credit alamy.com via IEEE Innovation at Work

Within the energy transition, we must not lose sight of the final consumer. We have to focus on the broader aspects of “energy transition” by re-engineering much of the existing infrastructure to create smart grids, provide storage, solar for individual homes, and the ability to introduce e-mobility across the transport sector.

These are the connecting points to the end-user. They “feel” the value of the energy transition in benefit; in energy security, increased choices and greater involvement in handling their own energy costs and local energy design choices, they see the “effect of change”.

A very critical piece of the energy transition puzzle is the necessary focus on the end-user sectors of how we work, live, and be connected to the need for energy change. It is the transport, industry, and buildings that are for the vast majority of us as the places where we “interact” with that make energy transitions real.

We want to see what different energy alternatives can really provide, otherwise “energy transitions” seem to be simply occurring elsewhere.

Any transition is a “hard sell” Here, for energy, it is the combination of new system designs and ways to operate, combined with technological innovation. 

We need to achieve the most pressing need to undertake greater energy efficiency and effectiveness at the consumption end of energy. It is not just replacing energy sources; it is all about solution renewal end-to-end

The nature of the energy landscape will require the transformation of businesses, the push to find and develop new market dynamics and embrace government policy and regulations in an orderly and planned way.

This “transformational mix” gives rise to different innovation dimensions to explore, be these enabling technologies, new business models, different market designs, and changes in the methods of system operation that make up a broader innovation ecosystem of solutions.

The increased electrification of these end-user sectors of transport, buildings, and industry are providing new designs for energy systems to operate can give increased reliability, lower costs, and greater efficiency.

The solutions offered are placing increased emphasis on digitalization so that the system design is managed on a  more decentralized and democratized participation and that enables better control and management of our costs, choices, and uses.

These energy choices are beginning to break up previous monopolistic providers in power generation. Passing the choices of energy design closer to the end-user has the exciting prospect that allows us as energy users, to potentially participate in the energy market, in choice of energy supply and a growing opportunity to sell off excess energy if we are self-generating our energy.

The changes are transforming energy management as the end-user is potentially becoming very engaged in the whole transformation of their energy.

The end-user market of transport, buildings, and the industry is predicted to be making a shift of their primary energy supply from the present 15% of renewable energy to 65% by 2050. The share of Renewable power is expected to rise to 85% by 2050 (source: Irena 2018 “Global energy transformation report”) and that adds the recognition that our energy is being sourced by sustainable and clean energy means.

The design of energy systems needs to bring closer to the end-user the utilization of mini-grids to enable greater flexibility and participation in energy co-operation between transmission and distribution system operators.

These designs are building the two-way flow where excess energy can be delivered back to the grid. You as a provider of energy, start seeing the benefits of reduced bills and even earning some cash from your energy contributions.

Innovation can accelerate progress, especially at the user-end point.

The role of innovation to translate the end-user need into reality within these sectors of transport, buildings, and industry will involve changes in system designs to digitalize grid services, build more local and grid-scale energy storage, deploy significant charging solutions for electric vehicles.

Access to clean energy needs to be as transparent and energy availability on-demand, reliable, and abundant to our needs as we can design and build it.

These innovations needed are galvanizing change, they are the catalysts of any change. Energy becomes one of increasingly managing the lifecycle design and transition, innovating end-to-end so energy is constant, affordable, and always available.

We need a robust design, connecting us as individuals as well as seeing ourselves within a community of being part of the end-user market for the energy transition In my opinion;  that comes partly from telling the emerging innovating story for energy solutions in exciting and effective ways based on offering clear roadmaps of energy design.

The post Connecting the Energy Story to the Final User first appeared on Innovating the Energy Transition.

Adapted Image: IRENA

We are at the point where “the rubber hits the road” or in Green Hydrogen’s case “the water needs to turn into H2 at scale and real value” and for that to happen it needs a massive commitment across so much that is work-in-progress today.

So much of where we are in Hydrogen is more of a promise theory or intent, than a reality. We need to moderate our rhetoric and provide realism before we completely overhype the green hydrogen. Impatience and growing frustration might kill off the hydrogen solution (again).

We need to massively be able to scale out solutions like the electrolyzer. We need to radically bring down existing production costs through different technology applications and design. We have to build a dedicated infrastructure and create real sustaining market demand. Today producing hydrogen means possible energy losses on the alternative.

We need to build the business case of Hydrogens value as the alternative to fossil fuel is a task-driven by the necessary policy change, customers willing to buy and replace their existing energy systems and suppliers able to offer the guarantees that any hydrogen replacement can work in demanding, more flexible conditions and offer affordability, sustainability, is effective and efficient beyond the existing solutions.

Oh, yes, to cap this all off it has to be at competitive prices to today’s energy sources. Or alternative solutions will need to be found, such as Nuclear perhaps.  I mean not much of a challenge to switch away from fossil fuels is it?Lets state the intent: the energy transformation requires a major shift in electricity generation from fossil fuels to renewable sources like solar and wind, greater energy efficiency and the widespread electrification of energy uses from cars to heating and cooling in buildings.

Not all sectors or industries can easily make the switch from fossil fuels to electricity. Hard-to-electrify (and therefore hard-to-abate) sectors include steel, cement, chemicals, long-haul road transport, maritime shipping and aviation all need imaginative and cost-effective alternatives to the existing solutions.

In a recent report “Green Hydrogen, a guide to policymaking” released by IRENA this month you are hit by a real dose of present reality.

Green hydrogen can provide that vital link between extending and sustaining renewable electricity generation (VRE) and provide solutions to those hard-to-electrify sectors.

We know Hydrogen is, without doubt, a suitable energy carrier and also for applications remote from electricity grid dependency. Also, Hydrogen can provide a high energy density, it can serve as a feedstock for chemical reactions and is well-positioned to produce a range of synthetic fuels and feedstocks to complete much of the energy transition.

Yet the barriers we face today are formidable to realize Hydrogen’s promise, picking up on the part of this report from IRENA.

Green hydrogen is regarded as the ultimate goal, but it needs to overcome the following barriers.

1. Green hydrogen has high production costs, and adopting green hydrogen technologies is presently expensive. To offer hydrogen vehicles with fuel cells and hydrogen tanks costs at least 1.5 to 2 times more than the fossil fuel counterparts at least. Synthetic fuels for aviation are presently eight times more expensive. Transport costs are equally at an economic disadvantage.
2. There is a lack of dedicated infrastructure. We only have 5,000 KM of hydrogen transmission pipelines compared to 3 million km for natural gas. There are presently only about 470 refuelling stations. We still are debating how and where to position our hydrogen sources and can it economically and safely can be transported.
3.  The energy losses are significant. About 30-35% of the energy used to produce hydrogen through electrolysis is lost (IRENA). To convert hydrogen to other carriers such as ammonia can result in 13-25% energy loss and transporting hydrogen requires additional energy inputs, estimated at 10-12% of the hydrogen itself. Using hydrogen in fuel cells can lead to additional 40-50% energy losses. Then you have the higher the energy losses, the more renewable electricity capacity will be needed. Can wind and solar satisfy both the global supply chain of electrification and simultaneously build a green hydrogen economy to solve the harder-to-abate challenges, for example?
4. Today Hydrogen has a lack of Value Recognition. We have no green hydrogen market, no green steel industry, no green shipping fuels and still according to IRENA, basically no valuation of the lower GHG emissions that green hydrogen can deliver. Hydrogen today is not counted in official energy statistics of total final energy consumption. There are no internationally recognized ways of differentiating grey, blue or green hydrogen. We lack clear targets or incentives to promote the use of green hydrogen. We are totally inhibiting many downstream uses of green hydrogen.
5. The critical need to ensure sustainability. Knowing an electric grid is only connected to renewables gives us the chance of green hydrogen. If fossil fuels are within the mix, any associated CO2 will need to be factored in when considering what hydrogen is being produced. The reality is fossil fuels will be in the hydrogen mix for some time to come and does this become a barrier, a taxing question and national emission debates. How can we ensure that grid-connected electrolyzer does deliver hydrogen with, at least, minimum emissions? Is this the case for the pursuit of green and blue hydrogen solutions setting out to capture all of the majority of the CO2

Realizing the true potential of green hydrogen is a long, dedicated journey, it needs to have a plan that is coordinated. Delivering green hydrogen needs international collaboration, it needs aligning standards, and it needs clear financing infrastructure to be staged along its “greening” journey.

Expectations for Hydrogen to significantly contribute to the Energy Transition are 5 to 10 years away. It is how we put the time between now and then will make or break Hydrogen as the viable, perhaps only sensible solution. Yet we must be realistic, grounded and highly focused on the significant challenges to be overcome.

We do need to face reality, dampen down the present hype around hydrogen and roll up our collective sleeves to tackle a highly complex set of challenges, we do need this dose of reality.

The post A Massive Dose of Hydrogen Reality first appeared on Innovating the Energy Transition.