Hydrogen might be the energy transition’s most promising yet polarizing player. With global investments soaring into the hundreds of billions, it remains a battleground of competing technologies, entrenched political interests, and engineering roadblocks.
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Josh Carmichael—a leader who has helped shape energy projects from Australia’s mega-battery to global hydrogen ventures—believes that the industry’s fragmented strategies risk stalling its potential.
While the hydrogen debate often focuses on colors or feasibility, Carmichael reframes it: What will it take for hydrogen and batteries to collaborate rather than compete?
Core Tension and Challenges in Adoption
The hydrogen industry suffers from fragmented priorities and misplaced ambitions. Carmichael criticizes the industry’s obsession with differentiating technologies by color codes—green, blue, gray—and argues that this overcomplication distracts from solving foundational issues like scalability and financing. He highlights an overlooked but critical problem: despite vast capital availability, projects consistently fail to reach Final Investment Decisions (FIDs) due to mismatched priorities between stakeholders.
Carmichael points to the battery sector for lessons learned. Early adopters prioritized clear market segments, from frequency control to short-term storage, building credibility one step at a time. In contrast, hydrogen projects frequently overpromise and underdeliver, attempting to tackle everything from transportation fuel to fertilizer feedstocks without securing reliable offtake agreements.
Modular vs. Mega Projects
The scale of hydrogen projects has also come under scrutiny. Carmichael sees value in modular, smaller-scale solutions that can be deployed rapidly and iterated instead of the sprawling mega-projects that dominate headlines but rarely achieve milestones. He shares insights from his experience, illustrating how these smaller projects are faster and often more cost-effective, reducing risks tied to regulatory delays and over-engineering.
Policy Pitfalls and Market Missteps
Policy frameworks around hydrogen have also drawn Carmichael’s critique. He points to the European Union’s additionality and time-matching requirements for electrolyzers as prime examples of counterproductive regulation. These measures, he argues, hinder innovation by imposing rigid operational constraints that don’t reflect market realities. In contrast, he praises South Australia’s pragmatic approach, where bipartisan collaboration allowed for scalable projects that married private-sector efficiency with public-sector backing.
What’s Missing: Trust and Collaboration
For all its technical complexity, Carmichael believes the hydrogen industry’s real missing link is trust. Too often, stakeholders—whether governments, developers, or financiers—approach projects from entrenched silos, failing to align objectives or share risks equitably. He recounts successful case studies, like South Australia’s battery project, where trust and transparency between public and private sectors drove rapid execution and long-term value.
