400km Hydrogen Pipeline With No Users Will Raise Germany’s Electricity Prices - CleanTechnica

Germany has completed and pressurized the first approximately 400km segment of its national hydrogen backbone pipeline, making the infrastructure technically ready for operation. However, the project faces a critical issue: there are currently no significant hydrogen suppliers connected nor substantial customers contracted to use the hydrogen. This lack of demand is not a temporary issue but a structural failure, which has broader implications beyond hydrogen policy. The costs of building and maintaining this infrastructure will persist for decades and will ultimately be passed on to consumers through higher electricity prices. The original plan for Germany’s hydrogen backbone envisioned a 9,000km national transmission network designed to support hydrogen demand in the range of 100 to 130 TWh by 2030, serving sectors such as steel, chemicals, transport fuels, power generation, and heavy industry. The strategy was to build the infrastructure first and let supply and demand develop afterward. However, a fundamental analytical error in European hydrogen policy is the use of terawatt-hours (TWh) to measure hydrogen demand