Accelerating hydrogen deployment requires action on multiple fronts. For now, most of the focus has been on “supply-side/push incentives” through financial tools like tax credits or funding programs to support developers. However, on-the-ground experience suggests that “demand-pull” measures are also needed to help mitigate the risk of market failure. Investment in hydrogen-related infrastructure must be accelerated, not least considering infrastructure projects’ often long lead times.
The H2Global Foundation has thus formed the following working groups for 2026:
Around the world, numerous large-scale clean hydrogen projects have been announced, with clear export ambitions targeting major importing regions, including Europe, Japan, and South Korea. Despite this momentum, export infrastructure has become a critical bottleneck for hydrogen production projects aimed at international markets.
WG1 investigates how the export infrastructure gap is driven by a two-sided interdependence: as clean hydrogen projects emerge in industrial clusters, project developers become reliant on public entities, ports and downstream actors to provide required export infrastructure. At the same time, infrastructure providers hesitate to invest because hydrogen production projects lack maturity, largely due to the absence of long-term, bankable offtake agreements. This mutual dependence creates a classic “chicken-and-egg” problem that slows the scaling of the global market.
The main conclusions of WG1 will be summarized in a peer-reviewed report including an overview of existing, planned and required export infrastructure as well as suitable business models and financing mechanisms to ensure broader participation in emerging clean hydrogen markets to be published in late 2026.
Clean hydrogen and its derivatives are indispensable for decarbonizing hard-to-abate sectors (e.g., steel, chemicals, shipping, and aviation). However, the transition is bottlenecked by the "green premium"—the higher cost of clean hydrogen (derivatives) compared to their fossil fuel-based counterparts.
WG2 will trace the cost premium across the entire value chain for select products to assess the capacity of different actors (from industrial intermediates to final consumers) to absorb the green premium. Private and public end users can have different abilities to pay more depending on the type of product, and direct users of hydrogen and their customers may be strongly influenced by competition and cost structures affecting their flexibility. Governments may consequently deploy tailored support where such flexibility is constrained.
The main conclusions of WG2 will be summarized in a peer-reviewed report on the role of end-users to bridge the green premium to be published in late 2026.
