Hydrogen’s role in the net zero transition is being threatened by a major weakness in the system – the lack of infrastructure to move it from producers to end users. New research from Edinburgh Business School at Heriot-Watt University warns that hydrogen transport infrastructure is developing at “half the pace” of other clean technologies, creating a bottleneck that could put “billions in clean energy investment” at risk.
The research team analysed 777,000 patents and 1.3 million citations over 182 years of hydrogen innovation, uncovering stark differences in how quickly different parts of the system are advancing. While production, storage and fuel cell technologies are racing ahead, the study finds that “distribution will become the dominant cost in any hydrogen system” as pipelines, terminals and liquefaction plants fail to keep up.
Lead author Dr David Dekker, Research Fellow at Edinburgh Business School, warns that the problem is baked into the way infrastructure is built and financed. “Even as we get better at producing and using hydrogen, getting it where it is needed stays expensive,” he said, pointing to “massive pipeline networks and liquefaction plants that need billions in capital investment” and face “complex” safety regulations and permitting processes.
The study highlights how ownership patterns are slowing innovation across the hydrogen network. “Most distribution infrastructure sits with a handful of major companies,” Dr Dekker noted, adding that these firms “tend to share less knowledge than innovators in other hydrogen fields.”
“In capital-intensive sectors where competitive advantage matters, companies are far less likely to publish innovations openly,” he said. “This slows progress across the entire sector.”
Professor Dimitris Christopoulos, Director of Research at Edinburgh Business School and Heriot-Watt University’s School of Social Sciences, argued that infrastructure has become the fundamental gap in the hydrogen transition. “We cannot have a hydrogen economy without the infrastructure to move it around. Right now, that is the fundamental missing piece,” he said.
He warned that bottlenecks could derail climate ambitions anchored in rapid deployment of low-carbon technologies. “The Paris Agreement, adopted in 2015, requires rapid scaling of clean energy technologies, but infrastructure bottlenecks could undermine major investment programmes,” he said, adding: “The question now is whether policymakers and industry will act before distribution costs make hydrogen uncompetitive.”
The findings echo a growing concern in hydrogen-leading economies such as Germany, where large-scale green hydrogen plans are running ahead of infrastructure delivery. Professor Mercedes Maroto-Valer, Director of the UK Industrial Decarbonisation Research and Innovation Centre (IDRIC), described the situation as “a classic chicken and egg problem.”
“Industry will not commit at scale without pipelines, terminals and reliable delivery, but those networks will not be built at scale without firm industrial demand,” she said. “What this new Heriot-Watt research adds is hard evidence that distribution innovation moves much more slowly than the rest of the hydrogen system.”
Without intervention, the authors warn that high distribution costs and uncertainty will continue to “hold the market back”. The pipes, terminals and liquefaction plants needed to move hydrogen “safely and affordably are lagging behind”, leaving production concentrated near manufacturing hubs and preventing the wider economy from accessing hydrogen’s climate benefits.
The study calls for “targeted action to de-risk infrastructure”, including policies and incentives that encourage greater knowledge sharing and the creation of open technical standards. Publicly backed demonstration projects are also seen as essential to “reduce risk for industry and speed up the development of viable distribution solutions”, helping to unlock private investment and keep hydrogen competitive in the global clean energy race.
