After the cascade of promises, the difficult return to reality. In its new “national strategy” on low-carbon hydrogen published this Wednesday morning, the French government confirmed a significant reduction in the country’s ambitions in this area. This comes as the industry suffers a string of setbacks: earlier this week, the press revealed that the French company McPhy, supposedly developing France’s first green hydrogen production gigafactory with tens of millions of euros in public subsidies, was officially for sale.
Indeed, the production of “green” hydrogen by water electrolysis (without fossil fuels) will ultimately have to reach ” up to 4.5 gigawatts (GW)” installed in 2030, compared to the 6.5 GW targeted until now, the document states. The same decline has taken place regarding the 2035 objective, since the target has gone from a minimum of 10 GW to a ceiling of 8 GW available by that date.
To date, only 0.4 GW of electrolysis capacity has been secured and 0.2 GW is currently being examined for financing.