At the largest & most senior global hydrogen event, we spoke to the world’s hydrogen and energy leaders about the future outlook for the hydrogen industry, including Ivo Bols, President, Europe and Africa, Air Products.
Watch the full video below!
“Air Products is a big hydrogen producer in the world and actually a first mover in converting that hydrogen to green and blue, the World Hydrogen Summit is the place to be for our company.
This World Hydrogen Summit is now probably the most pivotal of exhibitions and conferences where the right people for an industry like Air Products come together, combining both public and private around the topic of hydrogen and how it can contribute to decarbonizing our economies and society.
The key things here is, this very good combination of private and public attendance, we need both, as a company we have invested heavily in green and blue projects that are real and under construction, however, they remain quite a number of challenges to be tackled in the area of permitting where we need local and international Governments support to make them happen on the funding side where obviously instruments like Ipsy or the IRA are very important to accelerate and drive these projects forward, but also to stimulate demand, end users that will convert their processes that will decarbonize and specifically the hard to abate industries.
It’s absolutely an interesting networking event, I think if you look at the short history of the world hydrogen summit, we have now the opportunity to meet representatives from 128 countries, and as Air Products, we are a strong believer that in order to make hydrogen work and contribute to energy transition, we need to collaborate internationally.
We firmly believe that both the mix of domestic and imported energy for a region like Europe is crucial so if we have a summit that can mobilize these people to come, to really meet and to sit down and discuss in detail how things can be established and elaborated, that collaboration platform is irreplaceable.
The year-on-year process versus last year has been enormous, when people were still asking questions about hydrogen being a hype, that question has disappeared. It is now about how much, when, how many investment decisions being made, instruments being put in place. I’m certain and confident that when we meet next year, we will be talking about real life projects coming on stream. We will see videos of how shipments arrive in ports, we will see trucks driving on hydrogen, we will see industries that have converted their first or maybe their second production lines. I’m sure 10-15 years from now, we will look back on this period as quite a pivotal moment. People step into this with lots of uncertainty, lots of doubts, and it is extremely exciting when you see how different pieces fall into place, but also as you see the force and the strength of so many companies joining that same wave of hydrogen. This is not about who’s the smartest or who’s the richest or who’s the biggest, it’s really this collective mobilization that will convince the market not only that this can work but that it’s feasible, but that it is reliable and that it is the right thing to do for everybody. These geopolitical challenges they need attention from our politicians, they can create some distraction, however they have made it very clear that reliability of energy supply is critical. I think we got used to seeing it as a given that didn’t need attention, it will mean therefore that yes diversifying the energy portfolio is a good thing to do, and the energy transition which may initially have been driven to reduce CO2 emissions is it in complete synergy and in complete lockstep with achieving that objective of diversified energy sourcing.
I think if you are at a forum like this World Hydrogen Summit, you have a responsibility, you are here to support, create opportunities. I really feel the right people are in the room, they are at this conference, it also means it is up to us, here and now.”
Join us at #WorldHydrogen2024
Produced by the Sustainable Energy Council in partnership with the Port of Rotterdam, the City of Rotterdam and the Province of Zuid Holland, the global event welcomes 15,000 industry professionals, 250+ Speakers, 500 Exhibitors and 70+ sponsors to share latest news, establish key connections and sign business deals to accelerate the deployment of the hydrogen economy. Register your place among hydrogen pioneers.
