One hundred million euros have been mobilized by the French government in its plan to deploy hydrogen in industry, mobility and energy. While experiments have multiplied in recent years, the first concrete achievements are beginning to emerge. Focus on a sector in full swing.
Taxi, bus, stations, the achievements of hydrogen mobility are the most visible part of the sector, but, at the same time, the carbon-free industry and the production sector are being established everywhere in France. With the legislative framework put in place – climate-energy law, hydrogen plan and multi-annual energy programming (PPE) – oriented towards carbon neutrality and the energy mix, hydrogen becomes an element of choice to achieve the objectives set and it is spreading to the heart of our cities.
Political will
As indicated in the PPE, “we must be ready to deploy French solutions in mainland France by 2030–2040 and ensure that they contribute to the development of a competitive sector”. This requires improving massive storage and electrolysis technologies. By 2035, it is planned to prepare the development and integration of the different technological bricks for the conversion of electricity from renewable sources into gas by creating demonstrators of sufficient size.
Another axis “hydrogen in mobility”, complementary to batteries and bioNGV. Many projects are already emerging in the regions around fleets of light professional vehicles. By 2030, thanks in particular to the expected progress in terms of the cost of electrolysis, decarbonized hydrogen distributed in stations should be at a price level compatible with the needs of hydrogen mobility (less than €7/kg, i.e. less than €7 for 100 km). These advantages are mainly found in certain heavy transport (road, rail and river), for which the weight, bulk and on-board energy of the batteries remain disadvantageous to this day. These heavy transports are a major lever for ensuring significant volumes of hydrogen and generating an autonomous ecosystem through economies of scale by allowing large stations to be deployed more quickly. This is why the PPE plans to encourage the development of a range of heavy vehicles not only for road vehicles, but also for other modes (boats, trains, aeronautics), and to pursue the logic of territorial fleets.
Hydrogen is also, according to the PPE, “the most promising means of massive inter-seasonal storage of intermittent electrical renewable energies currently”. It can also be used as a storage vector either by direct injection into the gas network or by methanation (production of synthetic methane).
