Industries

Hydrogen is currently used in industries mainly for the production of ammonia (an important feedstock for fertilisers), methanol (an important industrial feedstock especially for polymers, pharmaceuticals etc.) and ironworks (for annealing). Currently, hydrogen is not used for the extraction of iron from its ore (green steel), though in future, such a usage of hydrogen is anticipated.

As per IEA’s Global Hydrogen Review, 2024, the demand of hydrogen from industrial operations stood at 54 MMT in 2023, out of an overall demand of 97 MMT[1]. The breakup of the hydrogen demand for different industrial subsectors is given in Figure 1[2].

Figure 1: Hydrogen demand across industries as of 2023

The demand is projected to increase to 70 MMT in 2030 owing to rapid emergence of emerging use cases of hydrogen like steelmaking. Out of this, about 25 per cent is slated to be supplied from low-carbon sources, as per IEA’s Net Zero Emissions scenario[3].

The regional distribution of hydrogen demand due to industrial applications is shown in Figure 2[4]. China is the leading consumer of hydrogen for industries.

Figure 2: Regional spread of demand of hydrogen for industrial use, as of 2023