The European Commission opened a consultation on Monday on what its next hydrogen strategy should contain. It runs for four weeks and closes on 23 November 2026.
Four weeks to shape a strategy
There are two parts, a call for evidence and a targeted consultation for stakeholders, and both ask the same question: what belongs in the strategy. The timing was chosen. It opened on the first day of European Hydrogen Week in Brussels, which runs to 30 October under the theme “scaling hydrogen, strengthening resilience”.
It will be drafted alongside the EU renewable energy framework for the period to 2040, so that renewables feed into the 2040 climate target. Investors, the Commission says, should get stability and predictability out of it.
What the last strategy got wrong
The 2020 strategy carried two headline numbers: 10 million tonnes of renewable hydrogen produced inside the EU by 2030, and another 10 million tonnes imported. In 2024 the European Court of Auditors looked at how that was going and found the targets had been set out of political ambition rather than hard analysis. Demand, the auditors said, was likely to fall short of 10 million tonnes, against the 20 million first envisaged. Hydrogen made up under 2% of European energy consumption in 2022. Their recommendation was that the Commission update the strategy and concentrate on market incentives. That report is one of the reference documents the new consultation points readers towards.
Heat is demand, and it is not on the list
Which makes the themes on the consultation page worth reading closely. They are market development, domestic production, security of supply, strategic autonomy, a level playing field in global hydrogen trade, and barriers to renewable and low-carbon derivatives. The users the page names are industrial processes, agriculture, aviation and maritime transport.
Heat doesn’t appear. Nor do hydrogen valleys, islands or district heating. Supply and trade dominate the list. Demand gets a line about industrial processes where electrification isn’t feasible or cost-effective.
A hospital as the test case
H2Heat was set up to work on the part that’s missing. It is a Horizon Europe innovation action running to August 2028, coordinated by PLOCAN with eleven partners.
The kit is specific. A 0.5 MW advanced alkaline electrolyser from Stargate Hydrogen, which uses nanoceramic electrode materials in place of precious metals. A 100% hydrogen combined heat and power unit from 2G Solutions. An integrated heat pump, hydrogen storage, and a control layer matching variable renewable supply to electrolysis and heat demand.
An island is a hard place to run a system like this, which is why it is a useful one to prove it in. Grids are small, fuel arrives by ship, and a hospital can’t be turned off while the engineers work things out.