University of Otago chemistry professor Sally Brooker said the government’s recently released hydrogen action plan, and the steps it outlined to increase private sector investment in hydrogen energy, was "very encouraging".
"However, I don't think it's as ambitious as it should be," she said.
The government said it wanted to reduce consenting barriers to help renewable energy projects come to fruition.
But it was more important to facilitate increased renewable energy production in parallel with the industry that wanted to consume it, Prof Brooker said.
And its goal to double renewable electricity generation by 2050 would ultimately amount to a missed opportunity.
"New Zealand has an amazing opportunity to transform its economy, but we need to grab it with both hands — and doubling our electricity by 2050 is not ambitious enough.
"We should be trying to double it in a far shorter turnaround period. And by then [2050] we should be like four times our current electricity generation.
"There's an amazing opportunity here to transform our economy to what is akin to the current energy-rich people, which are the ones who have oil.
"You think of the Middle East, those economies are gangbusters ... and that could be us, but with green energy instead of oil.
"New Zealand has the natural resources that other countries dream of, basically the Saudi Arabia of wind, so to say.
Energy Minister Simeon Brown and Climate Change Minister Simon Watts released the hydrogen action plan this month, saying it spelled out what the government was doing to "lower regulatory barriers and enable industry" to further develop hydrogen energy projects.
Resource Management Act reform would include reducing barriers for hydrogen projects, the ministers said in a statement.
The government would promote a "market-led transition".
And it would support access to international investment and markets, they said.
Mr Watts said hydrogen had the potential to reduce New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions, particularly in hard-to-abate industries.
Hydrogen is considered green energy when the electricity used to produce it is made from renewable resources.
And the government statement highlighted heavy transport and industry as sectors that could benefit from the action plan.
The action plan said New Zealand’s hydrogen sector was in its early stages and there were global commercial headwinds including high capital costs and strong competition from alternative means of decarbonising.
However, Prof Brooker, who is a founding member of He Honoka Hauwai — German-NZ Green Hydrogen Centre, said long-term agreements with industries in need of electricity were as important as removing barriers to projects under the present consenting regime.
"You need to have plans being put in for consent to build renewable electricity generation at substantial scale.
"And at the same time, you need plans going in for an energy-intense industry partner who's going to agree to take the bulk of that electricity at an agreed deal over a long period of years."
Trusted trading partners such as Germany and Japan would be able to not only put in some big wind turbines, but would also be able to put in the associated industry that would use the power generated.
It would create "really good jobs" for the regions and a "real product".
"We won't be exporting hydrogen. It's too hard.
"But you can put hydrogen into methanol, ammonia, sustainable aviation fuel and green steel and export those, all of which we know how to export and all of which are valuable.
"And once you get it at scale, all the prices of being green, not dirty, will become much more palatable."
