The main purpose of study is to analyze Korean hydrogen industry from the perspective of industrial research. Korea has not been one of  the resource-abundant countries, leading to the absence of traditional development of the energy industry. Accordingly, energy-related policies have been promoted with a focus on considering the mix of national ower generation sources rather than fostering energy  industries. This trend has continued until recently, and even with regard to renewable energy, concerns have been focused on how much to increase the proportion of renewable energy in the power and energy mix. Even in industrial research, there is a trend that emphasizes the perspective of energy supply, such as the impact of such expansion of renewable energy supply on the manufacturing industries. 

On the other hand, as shown in the organizational composition of government ministries in recent years, the need to foster renewable  energy industries such as hydrogen, wind, and solar as individual industries is drawing attention. In line with the growing global trend of climate change and environmental policies, Korea is paying more attention to the fact that expanding the supply of renewable energy should lead to domestic industry development and economic growth. In order to strengthen the competitiveness of the Korean hydrogen industry in the process of transitioning the Korean economy to the hydrogen economy, successful implementation of industrial policies is necessary. In general, industrial policy aims to allow the market to be self-sustaining and private-led, so that in the case of major industries industrial policy performs its role in limited areas (e.g., trade-related issues that are difficult to cope with at the individual firm-level). On the other hand, it is important for the government to lead the development of emerging industries in policy due to high market uncertainties, lack of laws and systems, and insufficient infrastructure. 

The first contribution of this study is that it provides a economic scale of the value chain of the hydrogen industry based on data to help future policy implementation based on a clear understanding of the current status of the industry. This study provides useful insight for policy promotion by strictly defining the scope of the hydrogen industry using the ‘Industrial Value Chain’ methodology and estimating the economic scale of Korean hydrogen industry. The Industrial Value Chain is a methodology that defines the scope of industries subject to policy and estimates the economic scale of sales and employment through a text analysis on the main business description of each business using business population data. Through this, it can be used to estimate sales and employment of the hydrogen industry to secure the justification of industrial policies and estimate spillover effects. In addition, this study comprehensively considers the economic scale analysis, survey, literature review, and policy analysis of the hydrogen industry to identify areas that need policy support for the development of the hydrogen industry and derive policy suggestions. In Korea, since the government’s strong will to revitalize the hydrogen economy was announced in January 2019, double-digit policies have been promoted one after another so far in 2022. Policy interest, which was initially focused on the hydrogen utilization sector, has recently expanded to the entire hydrogen industry ecosystem. In particular, in recent years, there is a recognition that hydrogen price stabilization holds the key to the implementation of the hydrogen economy, and policy movements related to this are actively taking place.

This study presents the direction of policy implementation by evaluating Korea’s hydrogen-related policies using a clear understanding of the economic status of the industry and the results of analysis of emerging industries at a time when all-round policy efforts are being made to revitalize the hydrogen economy.