Bezos Earth Fund Awards USD 1 Million Support For H2Global Foundation To Stimulate A Market For Clean Hydrogen
Hamburg, 23 May, 2024 – The Bezos Earth Fund has awarded a USD 1 million grant to support H2Global Foundation’s initiative to accelerate the emergence of clean hydrogen markets around the world.
The audacious build-out of a global clean hydrogen economy is in its early stages. Any feasible scenario for avoiding runaway global warming involves clean hydrogen fueling ships, planes, trucks, and heat-intensive industries, as well as storing energy. Yet production and use of clean hydrogen needs to scale a thousand-fold by 2030 to meet global climate goals.
The H2Global Foundation has pioneered an ambitious approach to kickstart nascent hydrogen markets. It acts as a market maker through its subsidiary Hintco – stepping into emerging hydrogen markets as both a buyer from the first generation of hydrogen production facilities and as a seller to industrial hydrogen end-users. At the early stage of these markets, buyers and sellers have different expectations for price, volume, contract duration, and other terms. H2Global, through its innovative double-auction mechanism, bridges these divides, mitigates multiple risks, and provides the certainty needed for hydrogen producers to finance and build their projects and for consumers to purchase hydrogen on acceptable terms to aid decarbonization efforts.
With support from the Earth Fund, the H2Global Foundation will expand engagement with governments beyond the European Union, facilitate the establishment of new tenders that will mobilize public funding to support the creation of a global market for clean hydrogen, and join the Earth Fund and other stakeholders in designing green market accelerators for green fuels and commodities that can connect supply with demand, maximize public leverage, and crowd in commercial markets.
“There is an urgent need to get the clean hydrogen economy up and running if we are to have any hope of reducing carbon emissions in line with the Paris Agreement. This funding from the Bezos Earth Fund will help foster the growth of hydrogen markets by expanding this market intermediary globally, which tackles the problem at both ends by stimulating demand and providing a steady supply,” says Timo Bollerhey, H2Global lead strategist and executive director, Hintco.
“The innovative nature of H2Global’s approach, stimulating a functioning, transparent and liquid market for hydrogen, has already attracted the German and Dutch governments. Together, Germany and the Netherlands have already committed 4.73 billion euros to tenders that use H2Global’s double-auction mechanism. Other governments have followed suit, reaching out to the H2Global Foundation to learn more about the H2Global mechanism and how it could be used to support their own clean hydrogen markets and potentially help build “hydrogen bridges” from Canada to the EU, from Australia to the EU, Japan or South Korea,” says Markus Exenberger, executive director, H2Global Foundation.
“I would like to thank the Bezos Earth Fund for supporting H2Global Foundation’s efforts to reduce carbon emissions through the ramping up of clean hydrogen markets. This is the first philanthropic funding that H2Global Foundation has received and is an essential part of scaling up our activities. Philanthropic institutions play a vital role, alongside public and private finance, in making the energy transition a reality,” says Susana Moreira, executive director, H2Global.
“Building an end-to-end global value chain for clean hydrogen this decade to replace fossil molecules is one of the most daunting industrial challenges ever attempted. H2Global has pioneered an ambitious strategy to jump-start nascent hydrogen markets, supporting demand creation and addressing multiple risks at once, stimulating a functioning and transparent market. The Earth Fund is pleased to support this endeavour, positioned to unlock billions in government capital for low-carbon hydrogen, “says Paul Bodnar, Director of Sustainable Finance, Industry, and Diplomacy, Bezos Earth Fund.
The grant will facilitate H2Global in:
- deepening engagement with at least four countries outside the EU, such as Australia, Canada, Japan, Norway, South Korea, UK and USA;
- establishing by the end of 2024 at least one bilateral tender or one import tender that will mobilize up to USD 1 billion in additional public capital;
- laying the groundwork for a subsequent funding window in 2025;
- working with the Earth Fund and other stakeholders to design other innovative mechanisms to accelerate markets for hydrogen derivatives and associated commodities
For media inquiries, please contact: Victor Ponsford
