Author: Arnes Biogradlija

The Dutch government is providing over €700 million in subsidies to companies that will produce sustainable hydrogen, yet critical pipeline delays are forcing major project restructuring across the sector. The latest casualty: Vattenfall and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners’ 1GW Zeevonk project, now halved in capacity and pushed back five years due to infrastructure shortfalls. The project’s dramatic scaling—from 1GW to 500MW hydrogen production capacity—exposes systemic vulnerabilities in the Netherlands’ ambitious hydrogen strategy. The country aims to scale up electrolyser capacity to 4GW by 2030, but critical transport infrastructure isn’t keeping pace with production ambitions. Pipeline Politics Derails Commercial Timelines The Delta…

Oman’s ambitious plan to reduce oil’s GDP contribution from 39% to 8.4% by 2040 faces a critical storage optimization challenge where pumped hydro with battery systems achieves 40% renewable penetration at $570,000 daily costs—16% below the baseline fossil fuel system—while pure battery storage reaches 105% of baseline costs at $715,000 daily. This cost differential emerges as the Sultanate targets 30% renewable electricity by 2030 through 2,300 MW of planned solar and wind capacity, yet faces grid stability constraints that limit renewable penetration to just 28.65% without adequate storage infrastructure. The economic implications become stark when examining storage technology performance across…

China accounts for over 40% of global hydrogen projects that reach a final investment decision (FID), while Europe manages only a 4% conversion rate from announced investments to committed projects, according to the Hydrogen Council. PowerChina’s operational 20MW green hydrogen facility in Tashkent marks the first manifestation of this execution gap in Central Asia, where the company’s alkaline electrolyser technology aims to replace grey hydrogen at the Maxam chemical plant, thereby reducing annual CO2 emissions by 30,000 tonnes. The Tashkent facility’s 3,150 tonnes annual hydrogen production provides a scale reference for China’s expanding international footprint, yet this capacity represents a…

Ore Energy has connected the world’s first fully operational iron-air battery system to the Dutch grid in Delft, securing $23 million in European funding as the global iron-air battery market projects growth from $3.78 billion in 2023 to $10.14 billion by 2031. This achievement positions the Netherlands-based startup as Europe’s primary challenger to Form Energy, which has raised over $1.2 billion and announced a $760 million manufacturing facility while targeting $20 per kWh costs that undercut lithium-ion batteries by 90%. Founded in 2023 as a TU Delft spin-out, Ore Energy’s system provides multi-day energy storage using only iron, water, and…

The European Investment Bank’s in-principle approval of $135 million for ATOME’s Villeta project represents a significant bet on green hydrogen economics in a market where multilateral development banks deployed a record $125 billion in climate finance during 2023, yet Paraguay has received just €270.1 million from the EIB since 1959. This financing gap between global climate targets and regional investment history raises critical questions about the scalability and risk profile of first-generation green fertiliser ventures in emerging markets. ATOME’s 260,000-tonne-per-annum Calcium Ammonium Nitrate facility with 110 MW electrolysis capacity positions the project as one of the largest green hydrogen applications…

With 4,953 kilometers of Spain’s railway network still dependent on diesel traction—representing 42.5% of the 11,672-kilometer ADIF-managed system—the Transport and Sustainable Mobility Ministry has initiated a Preliminary Market Consultation to explore hydrogen and battery alternatives. This consultation targets six non-electrified lines, including Ávila-Salamanca, Torralba-Soria, and Huesca-Canfranc, as global hydrogen fuel cell train deployments generate projected revenues of $653.6 billion over the next 15 years with growth rates exceeding 100% annually. Spain’s current electrification rate of 57.5% aligns precisely with the EU average, according to Eurostat data for 2023, yet falls significantly below regional leaders like Luxembourg (96.7%) and Belgium (88.0%).…

On August 8th at 10 AM CET, Jack Rickers, Commercial & Business Development Lead at Hiringa Energy, delivered a detailed briefing on the Good Earth Green Hydrogen & Ammonia (GEGHA) project—a A$115 million commercial pilot in Moree, NSW, positioned to disrupt Australia’s fertilizer markets and advance agricultural decarbonization.

The lithium-ion battery industry faces a $23 billion annual maintenance challenge, with traditional reactive approaches contributing to 70% of unexpected system failures. As electric vehicle adoption accelerates and energy storage demands intensify, researchers are developing sophisticated predictive maintenance frameworks that move beyond simple point estimates to incorporate uncertainty quantification and multi-objective optimization. The Uncertainty Problem in Battery Predictions Current predictive maintenance strategies for lithium-ion batteries suffer from a critical flaw: they rely heavily on point-based remaining useful life (RUL) predictions without accounting for prediction uncertainty. This limitation creates significant operational risks, particularly in safety-critical applications where maintenance decisions based on…

Global green ammonia production capacity totals approximately 2.4 million tonnes currently against 191 million tonnes of conventional ammonia annually, yet Chile’s five projects seeking $3.6 billion financing plan to produce 4.4 million tonnes of green ammonia—nearly doubling existing global green capacity. The German development cooperation agency GIZ’s Financial Service Assistance program has exceeded initial targets by 67%, advising five projects instead of three, while seven additional projects await consultation, indicating substantial market momentum despite cost and regulatory challenges that have constrained project development globally. Chile’s competitive positioning relies on production cost projections of $1.5 per kilogram hydrogen by 2030, significantly…

Germany’s hydrogen demand projections of 95-130 TWh by 2030 require imports covering 50-70% of consumption; however, rising African production costs are forcing a strategic recalculation toward domestic electrolysis capacity, which must scale from the current 2.5 GW of approved projects to meet industrial requirements. thyssenkrupp Nucera’s €1 billion order backlog and 73% surge in green hydrogen orders reflect growing momentum for domestic production. Meanwhile, BASF’s 54 MW electrolyzer, which produces 8,000 metric tons annually, demonstrates large-scale industrial implementation that could reduce import dependence if replicated across the German chemical and steel sectors. The shift toward domestic production addresses supply security…