We caught up with Cooley ahead of tomorrow’s event to find out more about what we can expect to hear from his presentation, and what he thinks we need to see to make hydrogen happen.

We’re looking forward to hearing you talk at H2 View’s Virtual Hydrogen Summit Europe 2022. Can you give us a teaser of what we can expect from your presentation?

The last few years have seen an incredible acceleration of growth in the hydrogen sector. My presentation will explore what’s driving this and what roadblocks to investment still remain to unlock widespread adoption.  

Our summit theme is A Climate for Action and Investment: Making Hydrogen Happen. As we move towards scale, now is the time to double down on the action and investment required – widely seen as the last piece of the puzzle for the hydrogen economy. What does this action and investment need to look like in your opinion?

To unlock investment and create a bankable industry, we need policy. Although we’re seeing a strong increase in the number of global hydrogen strategies – and many of these centre around green hydrogen – governments and world leaders need to take radical action now to hit climate targets. Using ITM Power’s experience, I would say that investment from global capital markets, coupled with strong industry partnerships are both essential for the sector to realise its full potential.

Where do you think the opportunities are for hydrogen? And conversely, where do you think the challenges are?

Hydrogen is incredibly versatile, making it a near perfect zero carbon energy source. We’ve already demonstrated how it can be used to power transport, as well as to decarbonise hard to abate industrial processes.  But there’s constant innovation and there will be many more opportunities for hydrogen in the not too distant future. Challenges lie in scale and deployment. And neither of these will happen fast enough for us to reach net zero without government policy and support.

What’s one thing you think we need to see to make hydrogen happen?

Policy support to unleash financial close on a staggering pipeline of projects.