The future energy: Hydrogen versus electricity

• Efficiency of hydrogen and electricity accumulation is compared.
• The claims about obvious inefficiency of hydrogen economy are inadequate.
• For long-term storage of energy it is more favorable to accumulate hydrogen.
• The hydrogen economy and electricity economy can coexist in the future.

Theoretically there can be different ways of the green (carbon-free) energy development aimed at providing sustainable development of humankind in the future, in particular hydrogen economy or electricity economy. In this paper the processes of hydrogen and electricity production, conversion and storage are compared in terms of energy and economic expenditure for each stage of these technologies. The assessment shows that the electricity economy proves more preferable in the case of short-term energy storage, whereas the use of hydrogen is more beneficial in the case of long-term storage. This is indicative of the fact that the hydrogen economy and electricity economy can coexist in the energy of the future and each energy carrier can find its application area.