Energy supplies, climate change, and energy sector transformation are challenges facing every country. It's why the argument for hydrogen is gaining momentum.

While hydrogen is best known as a way of storing or transporting energy, many at last week's Hydrogen Dialogue expo in the Bavarian city of Nuremberg believe it's an essential asset for decarbonizing our energy streams.

Bavaria's Vice Minister of Economic Affairs, Roland Weigert, told CGTN that "Hydrogen will be a central solution to the issue of the climate crisis, if we succeed in producing this hydrogen, CO2-free."

Green hydrogen is the answer

Whether hydrogen is really "clean" depends on the method of production. Green hydrogen is produced by separating the hydrogen and oxygen in water with renewable energy, such as wind, water and solar. This process is called electrolysis.

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Once all the parameters are in place, hydrogen can then be an easy, carbon-free, cheap source of energy in multiple applications.

"Many companies are focusing on electrolysis technologies," says Tobias Weider, a Project Manager at ERIG, the European Research Institute for Gas and Energy Innovation.

"The gas grid operators try to figure out how their gas grids can be used for hydrogen. Same goes for the manufacturers, so we notice there is a huge drive in this field."

One such company is German engineering giant Bosch, who will have invested $1.3 billion in hydrogen technology by 2025.

Paul Simon is responsible for business development and sales for the company's electrolysis arm and says hydrogen will be the cornerstone of the future energy economy.

"The great thing about hydrogen (is) first you can directly use it in industrial processes, like for example, direct reduced iron, or in chemical processes. You can also put it in a kind of storage, so when the demand is there you can twist it around and produce electricity out of it."

Push to scale up

While hydrogen may sound like the perfect solution, the truth is, we are years away from it making a real impact on our energy mix.

"The transition is the challenge," said Weider. "The scaling basically, because most of the technology does exist but not to the scale that we need them right now."

He says it will take decades until that technology is at the scale where it can replace fossil fuels, meaning it will have little bearing on current energy supply concerns.

"The first approach will be to mix it into the gas grid," said Weider. "There will be a transition to 100 percent hydrogen, but we are talking about decades."

Simon emphasizes that we need to secure green energy first. 

While hydrogen is already being used by some industries, he says it's what is called 'grey' hydrogen, produced from fossil fuels, therefore emitting as much carbon dioxide as petrol and 1,000 times more than natural gas burnt directly.

By contrast, green hydrogen produces close to zero CO2 emissions.

Bavaria is a hydrogen leader

Germany has been a global forerunner in hydrogen technology, with the southern state of Bavaria leading the way, pioneering hydrogen and fuel cell technology and hopes to establish a national and European hydrogen network, according to Roland Weigert, from the Bavarian economy ministry.

"Bavaria is a strongly networked economy," said Weigert. "We have strong export orientation and foreign trade, which is over 50 percent and that is why we naturally want to export hydrogen technology, but at the same time we want to partner countries to supply us with hydrogen as an energy source. If we succeed in producing green hydrogen, then we will be a good deal further ahead on the issue of climate neutrality and climate protection."

With the importance of diversifying energy supplies that protect our environment, in time, hydrogen could be the answer to securing independent and climate-neutral energy solutions. But it will not happen overnight.