The Gap Between the Announcement and the Asset
Hydrogen has accumulated more policy announcements, government strategies, and corporate net-zero commitments than almost any other energy transition technology. The European Union's hydrogen strategy targets tens of millions of tonnes of green hydrogen production by 2030. The US Inflation Reduction Act created a production tax credit for clean hydrogen whose value makes green hydrogen economics genuinely competitive with fossil alternatives at sufficient production scale. Japan, South Korea, Australia, and Saudi Arabia have all published hydrogen strategies with multi-billion-dollar investment commitments. The volume of hydrogen announcement has been extraordinary. The volume of hydrogen infrastructure actually built, contracted, and operating at commercial scale has been more modest. The gap between announced ambition and constructed reality is the defining commercial characteristic of the hydrogen market in 2025 and 2026, and understanding what is actually being built, where, and for what purpose is the commercially relevant analysis that the headline strategy documents do not provide.
The honest assessment of the global hydrogen market distinguishes between three very different commercial realities that the generic term hydrogen conflates. First, the existing grey hydrogen market, where hydrogen is produced at large scale from natural gas without carbon capture for use in oil refining and ammonia fertiliser production, is a mature industrial commodity market that functions commercially without subsidy. Second, the blue hydrogen market, where carbon capture is added to grey hydrogen production to reduce its emissions intensity, is beginning to develop commercial projects whose economics are supported by carbon pricing in some markets and by the clean hydrogen tax credits of the Inflation Reduction Act in the US. Third, the green hydrogen market, where electrolysis powered by renewable electricity produces hydrogen with near-zero lifecycle emissions, is the market whose long-term commercial potential is largest but whose near-term commercial scale remains limited by the cost of green electrons and the capital cost of electrolysis equipment at the scale that commercial hydrogen production requires.
Electrolyser Deployment and the Scale Challenge
The electrolyser, the device that splits water into hydrogen and oxygen using electrical current, is the core manufacturing technology of green hydrogen production. Its cost and performance at scale determines whether green hydrogen can be produced at prices that compete with grey and blue hydrogen in the industrial applications that represent green hydrogen's most accessible near-term market. Electrolyser costs have fallen substantially over the past five years as manufacturers have invested in production scale and technology development. The alkaline electrolysers that dominate current large-scale installations are simpler and cheaper than the proton exchange membrane electrolysers whose faster response to variable power input makes them better suited to operation alongside intermittent renewable electricity sources. Solid oxide electrolysers whose higher operating temperature enables higher efficiency are in earlier commercial development but represent the next generation of electrolyser technology whose performance could materially improve green hydrogen production economics.
The commercial scale-up of electrolyser manufacturing is proceeding faster than sceptics anticipated but slower than the most optimistic project pipelines projected. The gigawatt-scale electrolyser manufacturing facilities that Nel, ITM Power, Thyssenkrupp Nucera, and the Chinese electrolyser manufacturers have announced and begun building represent a genuine manufacturing scale-up whose output will determine whether the green hydrogen projects in development can procure the electrolyser capacity they need on the timelines their offtake agreements require. The commercial bottleneck in the green hydrogen market is not electrolyser technology but the combination of green power access, grid connection, water supply, and offtake agreement that a commercial green hydrogen project requires simultaneously to achieve financial close.
Industrial Offtake and the Commercial Anchor
The commercial development of hydrogen infrastructure is being anchored by the industrial offtake agreements that convert hydrogen from an energy concept into a commercial commodity with a buyer. The steel industry, whose blast furnace process accounts for approximately seven percent of global CO2 emissions and whose decarbonisation through hydrogen-based direct reduction steelmaking represents one of the largest single emissions reduction opportunities available, has become the most commercially significant industrial hydrogen offtake market. SSAB's HYBRIT project in Sweden, which produced the world's first steel made with hydrogen-based direct reduction at commercial pilot scale, has demonstrated the technical viability of hydrogen steelmaking. The commercial scale-up of hydrogen steelmaking across the European steel industry is the offtake anchor that several of the large European green hydrogen projects are financing their development against.
The ammonia market represents the second major industrial hydrogen offtake opportunity whose commercial scale is large enough to underpin significant hydrogen infrastructure investment. Ammonia production consumes approximately eighteen million tonnes of hydrogen annually in its conventional grey hydrogen form, and the replacement of this grey hydrogen with green hydrogen in ammonia plants would represent one of the most commercially straightforward paths to large-scale green hydrogen deployment. Green ammonia, produced from green hydrogen, is also being developed as a hydrogen carrier for international hydrogen trade, allowing green hydrogen produced where renewable electricity is cheapest to be converted to ammonia for shipping and reconverted to hydrogen at the destination market. The commercial infrastructure for green ammonia trade is being developed in parallel with the green hydrogen production projects that would supply it.
Top 10 Companies in Hydrogen Globally
- Air Products: Largest industrial hydrogen producer globally and the company with the most advanced green hydrogen megaproject pipeline; its NEOM green hydrogen project in Saudi Arabia targeting 600 tonnes per day of green hydrogen for export as green ammonia is the most ambitious green hydrogen infrastructure project in construction.
- Linde: Industrial gas and engineering company with the largest installed hydrogen infrastructure including pipelines, liquefaction, and storage; its electrolyser manufacturing capability and its hydrogen fuelling station network position it across the entire hydrogen value chain from production through distribution.
- Thyssenkrupp Nucera: Listed green hydrogen electrolyser company spun out of Thyssenkrupp with a gigawatt-scale alkaline electrolyser manufacturing capability; its pipeline of commercial projects and its cell stack technology are its commercial differentiators in the industrial green hydrogen market.
- ITM Power: UK PEM electrolyser manufacturer whose Gigastack project with Ørsted and Phillips 66 is one of the most advanced large-scale green hydrogen production projects in Europe; its PEM technology advantage in variable renewable power response positions it for the offshore wind-linked hydrogen production model.
- Plug Power: US hydrogen fuel cell and electrolyser company targeting the green hydrogen market across mobility, material handling, and industrial applications; its ambition to become a green hydrogen producer as well as equipment supplier reflects the vertical integration strategy that the most commercially aggressive hydrogen companies are pursuing.
- Nel Hydrogen: Norwegian electrolyser and hydrogen fuelling company with both alkaline and PEM product lines; its manufacturing scale-up and its hydrogen fuelling station network in Scandinavia make it the hydrogen infrastructure company with the broadest geographic footprint in the European market.
- bp: Oil major with one of the largest green hydrogen project pipelines among the energy majors; its H2Teesside and Asian Renewable Energy Hub projects represent the scale of green hydrogen ambition that only a major energy company's balance sheet can support at the development stage.
- Hysata: Australian electrolyser startup whose capillary-fed electrolysis technology claims substantially higher efficiency than conventional alkaline or PEM electrolysers; its technology is at earlier commercial stage but represents the efficiency improvement pathway that could materially change green hydrogen production economics if validated at scale.
- SSAB (HYBRIT): Swedish steel company whose HYBRIT joint venture with LKAB and Vattenfall has demonstrated hydrogen-based direct reduction steelmaking at commercial pilot scale; its offtake commitment to fossil-free steel creates the demand anchor for green hydrogen infrastructure investment in the Nordic region.
- Trafigura: Commodity trading company investing in green hydrogen and ammonia production and trading infrastructure; its commercial expertise in commodity logistics and its balance sheet access position it as the trading counterparty whose participation in green hydrogen offtake markets provides the liquidity that project developers require.