Germany’s Hydrogen Industry Is Overselling Its 6 GW Reservation Headline

Germany's hydrogen pipeline operators are touting nearly 6 gigawatts (GW) of paid reservations on the country's planned hydrogen network as proof the hydrogen economy is taking off. But that number is less impressive than it sounds. It combines separate categories — about 2.7 GW of entry capacity, 2.3 GW of exit capacity, and roughly 0.5-0.6 GW of transport capacity — and adds them together in a way that double-counts hydrogen moving through the system, rather than measuring actual demand for hydrogen fuel.

The reservations are also cheap options, not firm commitments. Companies pay just 2.5% to 4% of the annual capacity charge to hold a spot, with the choice to convert to a real booking later. One example: French oil company TotalEnergies reserved 500 megawatts for its Leuna refinery for about €312,500 a year, versus roughly €12.5 million it would cost to actually book that capacity. That single refinery reservation makes up about 22% of Germany's exit-capacity reservations. Compared to the full planned network — over 9,000 kilometers of pipeline costing an estimated €18.9 billion, built for 101 GW of entry and 87 GW of exit capacity — the reservations amount to roughly 3% of what's being built.

None of this affects home heating or appliances directly. The interest so far is coming from refineries and industrial plants that already use hydrogen as a raw material, not from the broader uses — trucking, building heat, power plants — that hydrogen boosters have long promised.