Johann Wiebe is founder of the Hydrogen Standard, the leading information hub on global hydrogen developments. Hydrogen Standard launched in 2019, to help industry professionals navigate the rapid developments happening across the entire hydrogen value chain, and the supporting ecosystem.
We spoke with Johann about the role of hydrogen, and Hydrogen Standard, in today's world.
I founded Hydrogen Standard in 2019 because I recognized a shift in the focus of the energy transition. Hydrogen is going to play a prominent role in that development. The information hub focuses on two main areas:
1. Helping companies in the hydrogen space raise their profile, tell their story, and demonstrate technological solutions to the wider hydrogen audience.
2. Offering data analytics to understand how the market is evolving. We mainly focus on hydrogen production. Since hydrogen is a quite nascent market, we focus on hydrogen projects. We have a database of all 1500 hydrogen projects in the world. We keep track of these projects and how they’re evolving.
Hydrogen has been around for a while, but only in small quantities, mostly in the petrochemical sector and in the production of fertilizers. But it’s moving into a new role as an energy carrier and storage mechanism for the grid.
The problem with renewable energy such as solar and wind power is that you can't store it. When supply exceeds demand, we have to switch off solar panels and wind turbines. If a solution can be found for this issue, we can take a major step towards reducing global warming.
Instead of switching off renewable energy generators, the surplus energy could be stored as hydrogen. Once demand exceeds supply, the hydrogen can be fed back into the grid. This solution is still in an early development stage. There are challenges to overcome with regard to energy losses and efficiency. The plans that are currently on the table with policymakers are for the next ten to thirty years, so we will see what the future of hydrogen will bring.
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