# An Overview of Hydrogen's Application for Energy Purposes in Lithuania
## 1 Introduction  
Climate change is widely acknowledged to be one of the biggest threats facing humanity. It is already leading to loss of life, livelihood and property and to food and drinking water shortages, as a result of increasingly frequent extreme weather events, such as heat-waves, storms and floods. Fossil fuels, including coal, oil and gas, have been the world's primary energy source for over a century [1]. Much effort is put into energy transformation worldwide in order to mitigate various climate change impacts. The green transition of electricity generation is gaining speed in most of developed countries, as there is a shift from the fossil-fuel dominance of previous decades to zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2050, which means the reduction of 53.8 gigatonnes (Gt) of annual CO\({}_{2}\) emissions, limiting global long-term average temperature rise to 1.5 \({}^{\circ}\)C [2].  
Hydrogen is emerging as a promising renewable energy carrier that can help to solve the variability issues typical to renewable energy sources by its ability of storing large amounts of energy for long periods of time [1]. Therefore, hydrogen, as the most abundant element in the universe, has become a central point in the search for sustainable energy solutions. Increasing population and global economic growth are projected to drive future demand for hydrogen-derived products. Developing industrial hydrogen technologies have a potential to curb the greenhouse emissions up to 2030. Industry has ramped up the effort in decarbonisation of their manufacturing processes [3; 4; 5]. Deep transformations of energy systems are also influenced by geopolitical forces leading to the choice of alternative technological trajectories [6]. As evidence of this, the ongoing military conflict in Ukraine has destabilized energy supplies from Russia, one of the largest fossil fuel producers inthe world; this will lead to an increase in energy costs and thus an intensive search for acquisition of alternative renewable fuels, such as hydrogen [7,8].  
Baltic states stand out with a rapid development speed of renewable energy in the region due to abundant unexploited wind and solar resources and are perceived as potential renewable energy hubs in Europe. Lithuania is part of The Baltic Net Hydrogen Network Development Initiative, which aims to establish interconnections of net hydrogen gas systems between countries that are projected to have a large supply of net hydrogen resources (Finland, Lithuania) due to their huge renewable energy potential, developable capacities and availability, with countries in Europe (Germany, Poland), which will be able to import hydrogen from other European countries or from their neighbours in order to meet the hydrogen demand.  
This paper is structured as follows: Section 2 outlines hydrogen-related policies and supply-demand strategies in the EU. Meanwhile, hydrogen value chain components are outlined in Section 3. Technological aspects of hydrogen use in various industrial applications are addressed in Section 4. Some insights into hydrogen pricing are provided in Section 5 while Section 6 gives a scope of current situation and prospects of hydrogen use in Lithuania. Finally, Section 7 summarises the paper and proposes a discussion of perspectives in terms of future hydrogen applications.