Three years is a long time in hydrogen strategy. The Netherlands’ 2023 National Energy System Plan projected roughly 460 petajoules of gaseous hydrogen demand in 2040. Its 2026 National Energy System Plan update cuts that central estimate to about 200 PJ, a reduction of roughly 57%. This is especially interesting as few European countries committed as broadly to the hydrogen-economy thesis as the Netherlands. Germany went further on scale, but the Dutch built policy around production, imports, pipelines, storage and manufactured demand at the same time.

The applications disappearing from the forecast are as revealing as the headline number. Hydrogen is largely gone from dispatchable electricity generation, has been pushed out of low- and medium-temperature industrial heat by direct electrification, barely appears in buildings beyond pilots, and remains only a small direct energy carrier in road transport, aviation and shipping. Much of the synthetic-fuel production previously imagined inside the Netherlands also shifts toward imports of energy-rich intermediates and finished fuels from regions with cheaper renewable electricity.

At the same time, electricity moves much more firmly to the centre of the Dutch energy system. The new plan has electricity supplying 52% of final energy by 2040, up from roughly 25% today, alongside extensive electrification of transportation, buildings and industry. That figure understates the transformation because final energy measures what reaches the customer rather than the useful work produced. Electric drivetrains waste far less energy than combustion engines, while heat pumps deliver several units of heat for each unit of purchased electricity.

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