Global Hydrogen: Projects, Production & Prices

Committed investment and project maturity

Hydrogen Council tracking, as of its most recent Compass edition.

The 2027 cliff. The IEA warns that more than 100 GW of announced electrolysis capacity loses any realistic chance of operating by 2030 if it has not taken an investment decision by the end of 2027. That is the single most important date in the sector right now.

European Hydrogen Bank auctions — the clearest real price signal we have

Winning bids are the subsidy premium a developer needs on top of the market price, per kg produced over ten years. Compare within a basket, not across headline ranges — round 3 added maritime/aviation and low-carbon baskets that clear far higher.

Two things to read here. First, the budget for round 4 is cut ~62% to €500 m, and it introduces a ≥75% non-Chinese electrolyser content requirement — colliding directly with the CAPEX chart above. Second, delivery is the weak link: of round 2's 15 winners, only 6 had signed grant agreements by January 2026, covering 381 MW and €271 m — about a quarter of what was awarded.

Spanish project scoreboard

The counterweight. In January 2026, Iberdrola, Moeve, Acciona and other utilities collectively renounced €802 m in European hydrogen aid. Two Iberdrola projects were withdrawn from the Spanish auctions-as-a-service round in July 2026 and replaced from the reserve list by Repsol's ATLAS (50 MW, €133.4 m) and Puertollano Hydrogen Network (12.3 MW, €49.8 m). Money is being awarded faster than it is being absorbed.

German project scoreboard

The German pattern, in one sentence: the supply side is finally delivering hardware — Lingen produced, Emden, REFHYNE II, bp Lingen and SALCOS all physically building — while the demand side, especially steel, retreats faster than production arrives. ArcelorMittal handed back €1.3 bn rather than build; thyssenkrupp's 145,000 t/yr offtake tender has been paused since March 2025 on price and its DRI plant will start on natural gas. In April 2026 the Bundesrechnungshof declared the policy failed and demanded a reality check, noting a 400 km hydrogen pipeline built for €428.5 m that operates with neither suppliers nor customers.

What's working. Paid capacity reservations on the Kernnetz doubled in ten weeks to 6 GW plus 0.6 GW cross-cluster, with the over-subscription procedure triggered repeatedly. Two enabling laws passed in 2026: the Wasserstoff-Beschleunigungsgesetz (26 Feb, declaring hydrogen facilities of overriding public interest) and the THG-Quote reform (23 Apr, a binding RFNBO sub-quota of 1.5% from 2030 rising past 10% by 2040, penalty €120/GJ). The second Klimaschutzverträge round is open until 7 September 2026 with a €5 bn budget, using EEX's HYDRIX as the reference index.

Network movements and what's coming

Andalusia specifically. Still zero operational stations as of April 2026. HVR Energy is finalising the first in Córdoba, with Granada before end-2026 and Campo de Gibraltar in 2027, working toward 12 dispensers across the region by 2030 weighted to Seville, Cádiz and Málaga. The Sevilla project is HUB LA ISLA H2 at Dos Hermanas (1 MW electrolyser, 136 t/yr, 350 + 700 bar, €5.5 m phase 1) — it was due to open in autumn 2025 and has slipped. Separately, Enagás subsidiary Scale Gas has CEF funding of €8.03 m toward six 1,000 kg/day stations on the Atlantic and Mediterranean TEN-T corridors.

The vehicle problem underneath all of this. Only two fuel-cell passenger models are on sale in Europe (Toyota Mirai, Hyundai Nexo); BMW's iX5 Hydrogen is slated for 2028. Germany registered just 5 new hydrogen cars in January–February 2025. The one growing segment is buses: Germany went from 339 to 628 fuel-cell buses in 2025, up 85%. That is exactly why the 700-bar car network is closing while 350-bar heavy-duty capacity is being built.

• 4 Aug
  RWE's 300 MW Lingen delivers first green hydrogen to Evonik at Marl

  200 MW ITM Power PEM plus 100 MW Sunfire alkaline, feeding a 120 km pipeline. Up to 49,000 t/yr at full capacity; €619 m of German federal and Lower Saxony funding. Remaining 100 MW follows in 2027; TotalEnergies takes 30,000 t/yr at Leuna from 2030.

• 4 Aug
  Paid reservations on Germany's hydrogen core network double to ~6 GW

  FNB Gas's third market information package (data to 23 July) shows nearly 6 GW reserved on a paid basis, double the 13 May figure, against a planned ~9,000 km network.

• 31 Jul
  Moeve to break ground on Onuba in September

  Site works starting on Spain's largest green hydrogen plant: 300 MW, ~45,000 t/yr, >€1 bn, €304 m of Spanish NextGenerationEU money. Electrolysers are 15 × 20 MW alkaline from thyssenkrupp nucera.

• 31 Jul
  thyssenkrupp nucera green hydrogen order intake collapses to €13 m in Q3

  Alkaline water electrolysis bookings of just €13 m for the quarter; group results held up only on chlor-alkali timing. Cost savings signalled in the green hydrogen unit.

• 31 Jul
  China's hydrogen investment up more than 160% year-on-year in H1 2026

  National Energy Administration figures, far outpacing grid (+13.5%), EV charging (+21.8%) and storage (+74.3%). The NEA also states China held over half of global green hydrogen, ammonia and methanol capacity at end-2025. No absolute figure disclosed.

• 31 Jul
  Commission approves €290 m of Dutch state aid for hydrogen-derived SAF

  The first sustainable aviation fuel approval under the Clean Industrial Deal State Aid Framework.

• 30 Jul
  Yara finalises green ammonia offtake with Air Products for NEOM

  Yara will market NEOM volumes not converted to hydrogen. NEOM: 1.2 Mt/yr green ammonia (240,000 t/yr H2), 4 GW wind and solar, ~$8.4 bn. First ammonia expected 2027.

• 29 Jul
  CIP commits a nine-figure sum to a 120 MW electrolyser at Brunsbüttel

  Backed by a European Hydrogen Bank subsidy award. Reported as a commitment rather than a formally confirmed FID.

• 28 Jul
  Moeve's 1 GW Carteia re-enters public environmental consultation in Andalusia

  Resubmitted by the Junta after deficiencies were fixed. 2 × 500 MW, 600,000 t/yr green ammonia, €3,067 m, 34 months construction per phase — no start date scheduled.

• 28 Jul
  US backs the $4.5 bn ORNX green ammonia project at Laayoune

  USTDA grant for preliminary engineering — reported as the first US federal funding directed at the disputed Western Sahara territory.

• 24 Jul
  DOE concedes in court that hydrogen hub grant cuts were politically motivated

  Filings state that inclusion in the October 2025 termination tranche "was based solely on the political identity of the grant recipient's state". ~$8 bn cut across 16 states, including $1.2 bn for California's ARCHES hub.

• 22 Jul
  Sunfire named preferred electrolyser supplier to Nordic Ren-Gas; €1 bn e-methane offtake signed

  Builds on a 50 MW pressurised alkaline unit at Tampere. Ren-Gas signed a ~€1 bn renewable e-methane offtake with Germany's avanca/Alternoil alongside.

• 21 Jul
  Consorcio Austral files a $4.7 bn green ammonia complex into Chile's environmental review

  ~1.5 Mt/yr ammonia on a dedicated 1.73 GW wind farm plus storage. Construction slated Q3 2029–Q2 2033 — the largest non-mining project submitted in Chile this year.

• 20 Jul
  Chinese electrolyser exports reported up ~17-fold in H1 2026

  Headline claim; the underlying MW figure could not be verified against a primary source.

• 15 Jul
  Nel Q2: order intake +224% but losses widen and the CEO departs

  Order intake NOK 230 m, PEM at 96% of bookings. Revenue €13.7 m (−12% y/y), operating loss €18.3 m. Backlog NOK 1,213 m; cash €118.6 m. Håkon Volldal leaving.

Just outside the window, but material: Orica took FID on the Hunter Valley Hydrogen Hub on 1 July (AUD 245–283 m, 4,700 t/yr, Plug Power supplying 50 MW) — the period's clearest FID. And Air Products cancelled its $4.5 bn Louisiana blue hydrogen and CCS complex on 30 June, taking pre-tax charges of up to $2.9 bn.

1. IEA — Global Hydrogen Review 2026, Production
2. IEA — GHR 2026, Investment & innovation
3. IEA — GHR 2026, Demand
4. IEA — GHR 2025, electrolyser CAPEX
5. Hydrogen Council — Global Hydrogen Compass
6. ACER 2025 monitoring report via pv-magazine
7. Platts — European hydrogen PPA assessments
8. S&P Global — Commodities 2026, European green H2
9. CRU Group — Chinese electrolyser costs
10. Hydrogen Europe — 3rd EHB auction
11. European Commission — EHB auction 3 results
12. pv-magazine — 4th EHB auction draft terms
13. Moeve — Onuba FID
14. Enagás — Renewable hydrogen in Spain, 2026
15. H2Med — BarMar
16. H2Med — PCI renewal, April 2026
17. CINEA — €600 m CEF Energy call
18. MITECO — H2 Valles awards
19. European Hydrogen Observatory — EU electrolysis census
20. Argus — RFNBO review slips to autumn
21. Junta de Andalucía — €6.2 bn hydrogen portfolio
22. Trading Economics — TTF, EU ETS, DE/ES power
23. Air Products — Louisiana cancellation
24. Orica — Hunter Valley FID
25. FNB Gas — Kernnetz capacity reservations
26. Bundesnetzagentur — Wasserstoff-Kernnetz approval
27. EWI — German electrolysis ramp-up analysis
28. dena — Elektrolysekapazitäten in Deutschland
29. RWE — GET H2 Nukleus, Lingen
30. EWE — Emden 320 MW construction start
31. thyssenkrupp Steel — tkH2Steel transformation
32. energate — HydroHub Fenne cancellation
33. Klimaschutzverträge — 2026 bidding round
34. H2 Mobility — h2.live station map
35. H2 Mobility — network transformation
36. Clean Energy Wire — German HRS count
37. LBST / TÜV SÜD — H2stations.org annual assessment
38. European Hydrogen Observatory — HRS
39. Clean Hydrogen JU — H2stations data hub
40. European Hydrogen Observatory — AFIR
41. h2-stations.eu · h2-map.eu
42. El Conciso — HVR Energy Andalusian stations
43. Enagás — Scale Gas CEF station funding

Caveats. ACER, Platts and index values are the most recent published; several are late-2025 vintage because the publishers have not yet released 2026 equivalents. HYDRIX and Hydex current prints are subscriber-gated. The Chinese electrolyser export figure and the German 2%-of-target figure are headline claims without verified primary MW numbers. Green:grey cost comparisons mix ACER (Jan–Oct 2025) with August 2026 input costs — the gap is directionally right, the €/kg is not a live August 2026 print. On the refuelling network: h2.live, h2-map.eu, h2-stations.eu and the Observatory's HRS page are interactive maps whose counters render client-side, so no live August 2026 figure could be retrieved from them — the ~50 German and 152 European counts are H2 Mobility data as of January 2026, and the 294 European / 1,160 worldwide figures are LBST's end-2024 census on a broader definition. Do not mix the two bases. Spain's station count varies between 11 and 20 across sources depending on whether private sites are included. Germany's fuel-cell car and truck fleet figures are July 2024 (KBA); the bus figure is December 2025. No current Spanish or Europe-wide FCEV fleet number could be obtained.