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Hydrogen Transition Outlook and Trends - Q1 2026

Publisher GlobalData
Published Jan 20, 2026
Length 19 Pages
SKU # GBDT20939879

Description

Hydrogen Transition Outlook and Trends - Q1 2026

Summary

An uptick in project activity took place across Q4 2025, with 24 projects being announced, in comparison to 19 projects in the previous quarter.

This coincides with an overall increase in project activity over the course of 2025. Despite industry headwinds, announced and planned projects increased by 12.5%. Similarly, the number of operational projects increased by 32%, with over 110 projects being executed over the course of the year.

Despite the positive trends across project volume, average project scale across new announcements continues to fall as developers increasingly opt for smaller-scale projects. For example, the average scale of projects announced in Q4 2025 stood at 15ktpa per project. This compares to 58ktpa in Q4 2024, reflecting a marked decrease in industry confidence, particularly across projects that aim to serve offtakers.

Although the bulk of project activity and capacity remains green hydrogen, blue hydrogen remains the largest source of active capacity and continues to hold an increasing share of post-feasibility capacity. This reflects the importance of blue hydrogen for scaling low-carbon hydrogen production in the near-term and an increasing number of governments adopting a technology-neutral approach that offers support to both blue and green projects.

Key Highlights
  • Despite developers’ struggle to secure offtakers, merchant projects (which aim to sell hydrogen to third parties) continue to account for the highest proportion of overall pipeline projects. However, captive projects (which are embedded in an existing industrial facility and where all of the hydrogen has an immediate use case) holds an increased share of the projects that started operations in 2025, at 22%.
  • The share of captive projects was higher still among projects announced in 2025, where this type of project accounted for 30% of total announcements. Similarly, hybrid projects (which aim to produce hydrogen or derivatives for an existing use-case and sell the remainder) accounted for a higher share of projects starting operations in 2025 compared to its share of the overall pipeline. These trends indicate that business models with lower exposure to offtakers are currently more likely to reach later stages of development.
Scope
  • Global hydrogen outlook and trends. Breakdown of hydrogen capacity by stage of development, top capacities per country, top companies with hydrogen capacity, location and scale of largest upcoming low-carbon hydrogen projects and key players, outlook of hydrogen deal trends, global hydrogen policy map, and key policy developments from the previous quarter.
Reasons to Buy
  • Identify the market trends within the region and key players in hydrogen technologies.
  • Develop market insight of current, in development and announced capacity and latest trends of the sector.
  • Understand the region's different scenarios for 2030 based on the likeliness of the projects.
  • Understand how and where the market is growing as it is rapidly scales to become a key technology for the global energy transition

Table of Contents

19 Pages
Overview
Low Carbon Hydrogen Capacity Outlook
Deals & Contracts
Key Policy Developments
List of Tables
Capacity share change between Q1 2025 - Q1 2026
The world’s largest upcoming hydrogen projects globally
The largest projects announcements in Q4 2025
Hydrogen-related M&A and capital raisings activity in Q4 2025
Policy developments
List of Figures
A snapshot of the low-carbon hydrogen market
Active and announced capacity, as of Q1 2026
Regional capacity breakdown, as of Q1 2026
Project count by capacity band based on active and announced projects
Breakdown of captive vs merchant projects
Countries with the highest cumulative capacity
Hydrogen capacity scenarios to 2030
Companies’ net capacity share
Hydrogen deal trends quarterly comparison, Q4 2023 - Q4 2025
Hydrogen policy map

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