As the hydrogen industry takes its place on the world phase, a symbolic launch of new industry group The Hydrogen Council took place at Davos yesterday. The newly-formed council was the brainchild of the EU’s ‘Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking’, and consists of Chairpeople and CEOs from 13 major companies with a commercial interest in hydrogen. The Council’s stated goal is to work together to accelerate investment in commercial fuel cell and hydrogen projects. The represented companies are:
- Air Liquide,
- Alstom,
- Anglo American,
- BMW GROUP,
- Daimler,
- ENGIE,
- Honda,
- Hyundai Motor,
- Kawasaki,
- Royal Dutch Shell,
- The Linde Group,
- Total
- Toyota
Collectively this group represents over a trillion Euros in revenues and a combined workforce of 1.72 million people. It marks a serious push into the hydrogen sector, by serious players.
The Council plans to provide recommendations to policy makers, business people, international agencies and civil society to achieve their goals of commercialising hydrogen and keeping global warming to within 2 degrees above historical averages. After its first meeting at Davos, the Council released two statements for its co-Chairs: the CEO of Air Liquide and the Chairman of Toyota.
“The 2015 Paris Agreement to combat climate change is a significant step in the right direction but requires business action to be taken to make such a pledge a reality. The Hydrogen Council brings together some of the world’s leading industrial, automotive and energy companies with a clear ambition to explain why hydrogen emerges among the key solutions for the energy transition, in the mobility as well as in the power, industrial and residential sectors, and therefore requires the development of new strategies at a scale to support this. But we cannot do it alone. We need governments to back hydrogen with actions of their own – for example through large-scale infrastructure investment schemes. Our call today to world leaders is to commit to hydrogen so that together we can meet our shared climate ambitions and give further traction to the emerging Hydrogen ecosystem.”
- Benoît Potier, CEO, Air Liquide.
“The Hydrogen Council will exhibit responsible leadership in showcasing hydrogen technology and its benefits to the world. It will seek collaboration, cooperation and understanding from governments, industry and most importantly, the public. At Toyota, we have always tried to play a leading role in environmental and technological advances in the automotive industry, including through the introduction of fuel cell vehicles. Moreover, we know that in addition to transportation, hydrogen has the potential to support our transition to a low carbon society across multiple industries and the entire value chain. The Hydrogen Council aims to actively encourage this transition.”
- Takeshi Uchiyamada, Chairman, Toyota.
To further mark their creation, the newly-formed council has released a report titled ‘How Hydrogen empowers the energy transition‘, now available for download in our Library page.