Clean Hydrogen Explorer platform combines multiple datasets covering climate, water resources, renewable energy potential, and hydrogen production capacity. This page reports data source and assumptions done.
Hydro-meteorological data
- Inter-Sectoral Impact Model Intercomparison Project (ISIMIP3) – phases 3a and 3b
Provides climate and hydrological variables used to assess water availability and water stress, including precipitation, temperature, runoff, water consumption, and potential evapotranspiration.
Data are available globally on a 0.5° × 0.5° grid, with historical simulations (1950–2019) and future projections (2015–2100) under multiple Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs).
Source: https://data.isimip.org/search/
Energy data
- Pan-European Climate Database (PECD v4.2)
Provides climate-driven renewable energy indicators over Europe and North Africa on a 0.25° × 0.25° grid.
The dataset includes hydropower production and wind and solar capacity factors for historical periods and future climate scenarios.
Source: https://cds.climate.copernicus.eu/datasets/sis-energy-pecd?tab=download
- Global Energy Monitor (GEM) – Global Solar/Wind Power Tracker
Provides facility-level information on installed and planned solar and wind capacity worldwide, including project status, capacity, and geographic location. GEM data are combined with PECD capacity factors to estimate solar and wind production.
Source: https://globalenergymonitor.org/
Hydrogen data
- International Energy Agency (IEA) – Hydrogen Production Projects Database
Provides global, facility-level information on existing and planned hydrogen production projects, including technology, status, location, and production capacity (kt H₂/year). The dataset covers operational plants as well as projects in planning and development phases.
Source: https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/data-product/hydrogen-production-and-infrastructure-projects-database
Temporal scope
Although the underlying datasets span long historical periods and end-of-century projections, the dashboard focuses on timeframes most relevant for near- and mid-term assessment and policy analysis:
- Time frame 2025 - Current scenario
Given the temporal coverage of the available hydro-meteorological and energy datasets, the historical period considered in the analysis spans 2000–2019.
Hydrogen production plants location, technical specifications and timing are updated at 2025. - Time frames 2030, 2040, 2050 - Reference and Pessimistic future scenarios
Near- to mid-term projections for the period 2026–2055, subdivided into three decades:- 2030 time frame is representative for 2026–2035 decade,
- 2040 time frame is representative for 2036–2045 decade,
- 2040 time frame is representative for 2046–2055 decade.
This choice balances forward-looking relevance with robustness, limiting uncertainties associated with long-term climate, socio-economic, and energy-system projections.
Climate scenarios and modelling assumptions
The future analysis is based on two Shared Socioeconomic Pathways from the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report:
- SSP3-7.0 (reference future scenario)
A “regional rivalry” pathway characterized by fragmented governance, limited international cooperation, and slow technological diffusion. Emissions remain high throughout the century, making this scenario broadly consistent with a continuation of current policy trends. - SSP5-8.5 (pessimistic future scenario)
A fossil-fuel-driven development pathway with very high energy demand and minimal mitigation efforts, commonly used to explore upper-bound climate risks.
Lower-emission pathways (e.g. SSP1-2.6) were not included, as they assume rapid and globally coordinated mitigation efforts that are considered increasingly optimistic for mid-century assessments.
To ensure internal consistency, the same global climate model is adopted across hydro-meteorological (ISIMIP3b) and energy (PECD) datasets. MRI-ESM2 was selected as it provides a balanced and well-documented representation of temperature, precipitation, and large-scale circulation patterns over Europe and the Mediterranean region. In this study, the WaterGAP global hydrological model is used.
Methodological notes
- Water availability and water stress indicators are derived consistently from climate-driven hydrological simulations.
- Renewable energy production is estimated by combining climate-dependent capacity factors with observed and planned installed capacity.
- Hydrogen production capacity represents the maximum potential output of existing and planned facilities, assuming sufficient water and renewable energy availability.
- All indicators are aggregated and aligned at the regional level to enable cross-sectoral comparison and integrated assessment.