Air Liquide sees its hydrogen revenues trebling by 2035, driven by investment of around €8bn in the low-carbon hydrogen supply chain and contributing to the development of a low-carbon hydrogen ecosystem for the industry and clean mobility.

That’s what Peter Mackey, Air Liquide’s Vice-President of Strategy & Policy Support for Hydrogen Energy told gasworld’s Virtual Europe Industrial Gas Summit 2021 today (27th April), when he focused on all things green hydrogen.

Speaking of the industrial gas giant’s clean energy goals, Mackey also told the audience that Air Liquide hopes to construct, or be constructing, three gigawatts of electrolyser capacity by 2030. “Low carbon hydrogen is necessary to decarbonise existing industrial uses and markets,” he told attendees.

“We at Air Liquide, and of course our industrial gas peers, are working very hard on developing new technologies and partnerships to really develop the renewable hydrogen space to address both renewable and low carbon hydrogen markets.”

“To set the scene, under the terms of the Paris agreement, we need to achieve or get the world’s net zero by 2050. We’ve also seen 75 countries, representing over half the world’s GDP, announce net zero carbon emissions by 2050, the majority of course, with China look to achieve this by 2060. Further to that, we’ve seen over 20 countries now have banned the sale of internal combustion engine vehicles by 2035.”

“Air Liquide has also announced new climate objectives that are consistent with the Paris agreement, and target of carbon neutrality by 2050, which I think at the moment is the most aggressive of the year in the industrial gas space. Further to that, we [Air Liquide] have an intermediate target is to reduce our CO2 emissions by a third in absolute terms by 2035.”

Shifting away from a focus on Air Liquide’s hydrogen hopes, Mackey went on to focus as the hydrogen ecosystem as a whole. Of course, the development of a hydrogen society has seen many new companies emerge in the sector – but where do the industrial gas players come into the development of a clean energies economy? That’s exactly what Mackey discussed today.

“We [Air Liquide] believes that we [the industrial gases industry] have a very critical role to play in this in this ecosystem. We recognise that the development of the hydrogen energy market is naturally attracting many new entrants into this into this space, but we [the industrial gases industry] are the ones today that have the experience of handling hydrogen and particularly liquid hydrogen, which will be one of the aspects in which one of the formats in which large quantities of hydrogen are going to be transported around the world.”

“The industry has the worldwide safety procedures and experience of handling this molecule, and it’s therefore critically important that we share that it’s in the interest of all of us to operate safely and also to protect new markets. We have to recognise that as we move into the hydrogen energy space, then hydrogen leaves the safety of being used in the industrial world and becomes accessible to the general consumer. Taking this into consideration, we have to recognise the importance of safety in operations.”