IMO decision three months on: is Europe still committed to hydrogen?

The decision at October’s International Maritime Organization meeting to delay a vote on the net zero framework, effectively a no vote, was widely seen as a setback for hydrogen-derived fuels in shipping. Concerns have also been amplified by strong lobbying against EU sustainable aviation fuel mandates, leading to well-justified fears that momentum would be lost.

Yet the past three months tell a different story. Across Europe, hydrogen is still moving forward in policy, infrastructure, and production, albeit more selectively and at a more measured pace.

Europe keeps funding hydrogen

• European Hydrogen Bank: Launched its third auction in December with a EUR 1.3 billion budget, including EUR 300 million for maritime and aviation. Germany will add another EUR 1.3 billion for green hydrogen from Denmark, and Spain will contribute EUR  415 million. Spanish projects have been among the most successful in the auctions, though only a portion of projects awarded in earlier rounds have ultimately signed grant agreements.
• German power plants: In January, the German government and the European Commission reached an “agreement in principle” to tender 12 GW of new hydrogen-ready gas-fired power plants this year. These backup plans would need to be fully decarbonized by 2045.

Policy support remains in place  

• Sustainable Transport Investment Plan: Launched in November, with nearly EUR 3 billion in subsidies for clean aviation and maritime fuels by 2027, partly delivered through the European Hydrogen Bank and the Innovation Fund.
• Innovation Fund: In December, the European Commission launched the latest round for net-zero technologies, with a total budget of EUR  2.9 billion. Part of this funding is likely to be awarded to hydrogen and derivative projects, in line with previous awards.
• Projects of Common Interest (PCI): The second EU PCI list was announced in December, covering cross-border hydrogen pipelines, storage, and electrolyser developments. Once adopted, projects can access subsidies from the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) for Energy, which has a 2028-2034 budget of almost EUR 30 billion. 
• Offshore Wind Declaration: At the North Sea Summit in Hamburg, the offshore wind declaration explicitly mentions the potential of offshore hydrogen production and calls for a “coordinated offshore system that combines offshore wind with hydrogen production”.

Infrastructure is moving from plans to pipelines

• Germany: December saw 400 km of the Flow pipeline, part of the Core Grid, commissioned and ready for commercial operation.
• Netherlands: Gasunie’s 32 km Rotterdam industrial cluster pipeline is almost complete, with first hydrogen flows expected later in 2026.
• Denmark: Energinet will launch its capacity sale for the Danish hydrogen backbone on 30 January, with the sale remaining open until 1 December. 

From DNV’s project experience, close to 70% of onshore pipelines are already technically suitable for hydrogen. The remainder also show potential, though some will require additional testing before hydrogen can safely flow. None of the pipelines assessed by DNV have been ruled out, making repurposing existing infrastructure a low-risk, cost-efficient way to support a gradual hydrogen transition. To secure cost-efficient solutions, each case needs to be assessed individually, taking asset-specific and key operational parameters into account.

Production projects begin to deliver

Production projects are not standing still either. Hydrogen Europe’s most recent Clean Hydrogen Monitor shows that 2.8 GW of electrolysers are under construction in Europe . For example, Shell is nearing completion on its 200 MW Holland Hydrogen 1 project in Rotterdam; OMV is building a 140 MW plant in Austria, set to start operations by the end of next year; RWE has begun commissioning the first 100 MW phase of its 300 MW GetH2 Nukleus project in Lingen, Germany; and Uniper plans a final investment decision on the first 200 MW of its H2Maasvlakte project in the Netherlands. In Spain, Repsol has just taken FID on a 100 MW plant in the Petronor industrial complex in Bilbao. 

These projects may not yet match the scale once imagined, but they are critical incremental steps toward a functioning hydrogen sector.

A question of timing, not direction

As DNV’s Energy Transition Outlook shows, hydrogen and its derivatives will be critical over the long term, particularly for hard-to-electrify sectors. By 2060, these sectors are projected to rely on hydrogen for roughly 10 to 35% of their energy demand. To meet the goals of the Paris Agreement, hydrogen and its derivatives would need to account for about 15% of all global energy demand by 2050.

At the same time, deployment today falls far short of these levels. Hydrogen is projected to make up just 0.15% of the global energy mix by 2030, rising to around 4% by 2050 and close to 6% by 2060.

Against this backdrop, Europe is not stepping back from hydrogen. It’s getting more selective. Funding is still being provided, and production and infrastructure projects are still being built and commissioned. Progress may be slower, but it is grounded, practical, and directed towards the hard-to-electrify sectors that will need hydrogen and its derivatives to achieve net zero in practice.