‘From HEAVENN to Sustainable Hydrogen Valleys’ at COP27
This week the report ‘From HEAVENN to Sustainable Hydrogen Valleys’ written by New Energy Coalition and Impact Hydrogen was discussed at the UN Climate Conference COP27 in Sharm-el-Sheikh, Egypt.
The report addresses the positive impact that Hydrogen Valleys can bring to countries and regions and how this can secure international hydrogen trade relations. It is based on the experiences of HEAVENN (Hydrogen Energy Applications in Valley Environments for Northern Netherlands): a long-year programme for the development of a hydrogen value chain in the Northern Netherlands plus one additional factor for success: “impact by design”. The combination of the two can lead to sustainable hydrogen trade all over the world.
During a panel discussion at COP27 New Energy Coalition’s Patrick Cnubben, Director Strategy Hydrogen at New Energy Coalition pointed out that the Netherlands play a leading role in helping other countries to set up Sustainable Hydrogen Valleys by giving them the opportunity to learn from Europe’s first Hydrogen Valley, HEAVENN. Those best practices and the Dutch expertise on molecules and green hydrogen can help accelerate the global hydrogen economy. “Hydrogen Valleys are becoming a European success story, now with the integration of the Sustainable Development Goals in their development we are going to a next level. This success can be globalised for it combines the development of Hydrogen Valleys with the much desired Just Transition principles,” said Cnubben.
Impact Hydrogen’s Director Ann Abheiden explains: “Sustainable Hydrogen Valleys are a combination of technical innovation, enabling environment and sustainable development. They are set up in a way that it does two things simultaneously: enabling economic growth in the region, producing green hydrogen to trade. This helps in setting up a secure environment for international trade in green hydrogen.”
To secure successful, sustainable trade two conditions have to be included in a trade deal: (1) asking contract conditions in alignment with a Sustainable Hydrogen Valley set up, (2) creating mutual benefits. The Netherlands can function as a knowledge expert, using the advanced expertise acquired through the realisation of HEAVENN. In order to accelerate the development of Hydrogen Valleys worldwide, The Netherlands can set up local offices, so called Hydrogen Hubs, in countries The Netherlands trade with.
Furthermore, the report addresses: the key success factors and lessons learned from HEAVENN, Impact by Design and what it takes to implement it, financing possibilities which includes sufficient public funding to close the gaps, committed partnerships and robust political backing as well as the buy-in of the general public.
This publication has been made possible thanks to a financial contribution from RVO / Ministry of Economic Affairs & Climate Policy from the Netherlands, in order to support the Hydrogen initiative of Mission Innovation.
About co-author Impact Hydrogen
Impact Hydrogen is a project development company that organises hydrogen value chains in a sustainable way and gives advice on green hydrogen trade and development www.impacthydrogen.com
