The chief executive of Spanish oil, gas and chemicals company Cepsa has said that governments must do more to foster demand for hydrogen for its use as an energy vector to succeed.

Cepsa is in the process of investing more than €3 billion (US$3.24 billion) in what Reuters reports will be Europe’s largest clean hydrogen hub, and has also been investing considerably into renewable energy capacity. Maarten Wetselaar told Reuters that hydrogen is “slowly moving from hype to reality”, but that of “the things we need dearly, one would be to create demand. Demand creation is more important than supply subsidies, because you cannot scale up an industry with subsidies. It’s too expensive.” To increase demand, Mr Wetselaar suggests raising carbon permit costs and mandating consumption targets, following the pattern established in Europe for aviation and shipping, both of which have gradually increasing mandates for percentages of their fuel that must be sustainable.

As the chief executive himself points out, however, airlines are already tendering for around twice the mandated percentages to meet what they expect will be customer demand for more sustainable transport, which suggests that a certain level of demand is already there. What is probably true, on the other hand, is that such consumer-conscious demand has a limit, and that perhaps most demand will have to be driven by mandates.

Mr Wetsalaar also told Reuters that pipeline and production infrastructure for the hydrogen economy should be supported by governments, especially through faster and more expansive permitting. “With the infrastructure revolution that we need now, in terms of electrical transmission lines and [hydrogen] pipelines, the existing system will simply be too slow to get to net zero by 2050. If no action is taken, we will not build the infrastructure that will get us to net zero, so permitting and infrastructure is a really big issue,” Mr Wetsalaar stated.

Cepsa has plans to build two new (presumably green) hydrogen production plants near Cadiz and Huelva, Spain, with a total production capacity of 300,000 metric tonnes of H₂, with operation expected to begin in 2028. The size of the plants, Mr Wetsalaar said, could double or triple in the 2030s should planning and permitting challenges be met.