All Good News for 45V? Unlikely.

Key Points

At the 11^th hour, the IRS offered some 45V clarity, and while some have welcomed the move to annual matching rather than hourly matching of renewable power, we doubt that this will cause any immediate investment.
It still yields hydrogen that is too expensive, and we have noted in prior work that even with free power any intermittency of operations drives returns too low, especially if you are operating at the capacity-factor of solar.
The idea that hydrogen projects could be paired with power needed to maintain the operations of nuclear facilities is interesting, but a data center is going to outbid hydrogen for any substantial power source.
Regardless, we do not see much evidence of emerging demand that will pay the higher prices needed, even at full subsidies, just as true of Europe as the US. Blue hydrogen still looks like a far better near-term play.
Otherwise, with a break of a couple of weeks we only see a couple of new projects and more projects facing trouble than moving forward – we include the ammonia and methanol analysis from our new global update.

Exhibit 1: Even with 45V and a high price for hydrogen, you need very cheap power to make the math work.