The influence of state participation on the emergence of a hydrogen economy in the Netherlands

Abstract

The concept of a hydrogen economy has gain renewed attention as a way to enable a cost-effective transition to a low-carbon society. The adoption of hydrogen as an energy carrier beyond its current non-energetic use is however faced with deep uncertainty, making decision-making on policy support difficult. The state-owned enterprise (SOE) is evaluated as a particular type of policy support that may be implemented. SOEs are generally uniquely positioned in the energy system, due to their connection to policy-makers, their access to capital and their ownership of existing assets. An agent-based model (ABM) is created to evaluate the effects of SOEs on the emergence of a sustainable hydrogen economy. The model is experimented with using an exploratory modelling and analysis (EMA) approach. The results show that the SOE can strongly reduce the carbon intensity of hydrogen production, depending on the specific mandate used. A national carbon tax can achieve this effect as well, but the SOE has the added benefit of providing capital to asset investments, stimulating knowledge sharing and enabling investment in riskier technologies. This last benefit is especially important if the SOE is used to enable early deployment of electrolyser technologies. Further measures would have to be taken to facilitate this deployment, because in the coming decades electrolysers will remain far from cost-competitive under most market conditions.