The social implementation of hydrogen is there are many issues to be resolved not only technologically but also institutionally to realize it. In this paper, we would like to review the policy and institutional trends toward the realization of the hydrogen business in foreign countries.

Hydrogen is an important energy for the realization of carbon neutral society in Japan. Hydrogen mainly plays a role of substituting fossil fuels and effectively utilizing renewable energy. However, there are still many problems to be solved to realize a “hydrogen energy society” that utilizes hydrogen as the main and familiar energy. One of the main problems is a large gap between the hydrogen production cost and the allowable procurement cost of hydrogen consumers. On the other hand, sustainable finance such as impact finance has begun to expand rapidly at financial institutions. The environmental and social effects of corporate activities are called “impact,” and the impact finance is an investment and loans to produce impacts in parallel with the economic returns. With the spread of the impact finance, the financial institutions and business partners will be able to collaborate more closely, for example, to build a hydrogen supply chain with completely new concept and create new businesses.

EU Taxonomy has two “green lists”, which over about 100 economic activities with thresholds and criteria for sustainability. Hydrogen production is one of such listed activities and its GHG emission threshold is 3 kg-CO_2e/kg-H₂. At the same time, Europe is trying to introduce Guarantee of Origin (GO) schemes for hydrogen, one of which is CertifHy scheme with current threshold of 4.3 kg-CO_2e/kg-H₂. (it will be revised for 3.3 kg-CO_2e/kg-H₂ by the end of 2022). Hydrogen GO is to decarbonize hydrogen production by introducing certificate system among industry, whereas EU taxonomy is to mobilize financing community to let industry to invest low carbon technology toward future. This paper explains the background of EU Taxonomy, focusing on hydrogen threshold and its impact on hydrogen industry in the future.

Hydrogen will be an inevitable factor toward realizing decarbonization on global basis. In this report, we present our expectations on hydrogen technology and market from three venture capital investment viewpoints such as solving fundamental social issues, providing a solution for bottlenecking challenges in the market and realizing only 1 and/or number 1 technology in the world with satisfying customers benefit. Radical cost reduction contributions within green/blue hydrogen production, conversion and delivery fields will become more important. While tackling with such cost challenges, broad collaboration among industry large enterprises, start-ups, investors and governments should play an important role to achieve assumes hydrogen society.

Hydrogen refueling stations (HRSs) are an inevitable infrastructure for the utility of fuel cell vehicles; however, they can raise public safety concerns. The aim of this study is to establish a framework for public acceptance of HRSs in Japan upon the provision of risk and/or safety measure information on HRSs. We executed an in-person interview survey asking the respondents about their acceptance of HRSs. The results show that provision of the quantitative risk information and risk acceptance criteria increased the acceptability of HRS in proximity to the homes of respondents (P<0.1) but decreased the acceptability of HRS at the nearest gas station. We constructed a structural equation model on HRS acceptance. The common factors to determine acceptability were “Dread” and “Independent”. “Balance” was added to the factors for the risk-informed group. This study reveals risk perception characteristics and attempts to promote improved risk communication prior to HRS installation.