Netherlands Trims Its 2040 Hydrogen Demand Outlook to 200 PJ

The Netherlands' 2026 National Energy System Plan update cuts the country's central estimate for gaseous hydrogen demand in 2040 to about 200 petajoules, down from roughly 460 PJ in the 2023 plan, a reduction of about 57%.

The Netherlands has cut the centre of its long-range hydrogen forecast by more than half. In the 2023 edition of the National Energy System Plan, the government's planning framework for how the country's energy system should look decades out, gaseous hydrogen demand in 2040 was put at roughly 460 petajoules. The 2026 update of that plan puts the central estimate at about 200 PJ — a reduction of roughly 57%, as reported by CleanTechnica.

A petajoule is a unit of energy: one thousand trillion joules. Energy ministries use it because it lets gas, electricity, heat and fuels be compared on the same scale. The important thing here is not the unit but the direction and the size of the revision. Roughly 260 PJ of assumed future demand — the arithmetic difference between the two central estimates — has been taken out of the official picture in the space of three years.

A planning number, not a market number

It is worth being precise about what has changed. No hydrogen has been consumed or not consumed. What moved is a projection, and projections of this kind are inputs to other decisions: how much electrolysis capacity the state supports, how much import terminal and pipeline capacity gets built, how network operators size the backbone that is meant to carry hydrogen between industrial clusters and ports.

That is exactly why the revision matters more than a typical forecast tweak. In hydrogen, the infrastructure has to be committed years before the demand exists, and the demand only materialises if the infrastructure is credible. Official demand estimates are the anchor that lets pipeline operators, port authorities and electrolyser developers each assume the others will show up. Halving the anchor loosens every rope tied to it.

The Netherlands is also not a marginal player in this. It hosts some of Europe's densest industrial and refining clusters, a major North Sea wind build-out that was always the obvious power source for green hydrogen, and port infrastructure positioned to import hydrogen and its carriers from outside the European Union. If any national plan was going to underwrite an optimistic European hydrogen number, it was this one.

What typically drives a downgrade this large

The lead facts give the magnitude of the change rather than a line-by-line reconciliation, so the honest thing is to describe the pressures that have been visible across the sector rather than assign specific shares of the 260 PJ to specific causes.

• Electrification eating hydrogen's lunch. Where a process can be run on electricity directly, doing so avoids the conversion losses of making hydrogen first. Every industrial process that switches to direct electrification is demand that never reaches a hydrogen forecast.
• Cost discipline on the supply side. Green hydrogen requires electrolysers, renewable power and storage. Project sponsors across Europe have found final investment decisions harder than concept studies suggested.
• Industrial demand that may not be there. Forecasts built on heavy industry decarbonising in place assume heavy industry stays in place. Where energy-intensive production shrinks or relocates, the hydrogen demand attached to it goes with it.
• Transport assumptions maturing. Road transport hydrogen has consistently lost ground to batteries in light and increasingly in medium duty, narrowing the plausible use cases to heavy, long-distance and maritime applications.

None of these is unique to the Netherlands. What is notable is that a government has now written the downgrade into its formal planning document rather than leaving it to consultants and analysts.

Who feels this first

Electrolyser manufacturers are the most directly exposed. Their order books have been built on an assumption of gigawatt-scale national programmes arriving on a schedule. A national plan that cuts its 2040 demand centre by roughly 57% does not cancel orders on its own, but it changes the slope of the curve that factory investment decisions were sized against. Manufacturing capacity built for one demand trajectory and utilised against another is the classic way a young hardware industry gets hurt.

Project developers holding early-stage hydrogen production sites face a different problem: offtake. A hydrogen plant without a contracted buyer is a financing problem, and a lower official demand outlook makes buyers more willing to wait, negotiate harder, or shorten contract terms. Developers with signed industrial offtake are comparatively insulated; those relying on a forecast to persuade lenders are not.

Infrastructure operators sit in the middle. A hydrogen backbone sized to 460 PJ of eventual throughput and utilised against 200 PJ is an expensive asset with a tariff problem, since the same fixed cost has to be recovered from fewer units delivered. Expect scrutiny of phasing — building the trunk lines that connect confirmed industrial users first, and deferring the speculative branches.

The read-across to EU targets

European hydrogen policy has been built on aggregate ambition: a bloc-wide production and import target, with national plans expected to add up to it. When a member state with strong wind resources, heavy industry and import-capable ports revises its own number down this far, the aggregate becomes harder to defend arithmetically. Other member states reviewing their own plans now have cover to do the same.

The more constructive reading is that the sector is moving from advocacy numbers to planning numbers. A 200 PJ estimate that survives contact with project economics is more useful to an investor than a 460 PJ estimate that does not. Capital allocated against realistic demand is capital that tends to stay allocated.

Public markets have not treated this as a shock to the broader tape. As of the last trade at 16:42 GMT on 24 September 2026, the S&P 500 tracker (NYSEARCA: SPY) was at $768.60, up 0.10% on the day against a previous close of $767.81; the Nasdaq 100 tracker (NASDAQ: QQQ) sat at $741.91, up 0.09%; the Dow tracker (NYSEARCA: DIA) was at $513.82, down 0.09%. Index-level calm is what you would expect — hydrogen's listed pure-plays are small relative to these benchmarks, and a national planning document is a slow-burn input rather than an earnings event.

What to watch next

Three things will tell you whether this is a Dutch recalibration or the start of a wider European reset. First, whether other member states' updated national plans move in the same direction and by comparable magnitudes. Second, whether Dutch subsidy and tender volumes are resized to match the new central estimate or left at levels set against the old one — a mismatch there would be the clearest signal of how seriously the revision is meant to be taken. Third, whether hydrogen backbone construction schedules are rephased, because pipeline timetables are the hardest commitment in the chain to reverse quietly.

For anyone modelling electrolyser demand out of Europe, the practical instruction is simpler: rebuild the forecast from contracted offtake upward, not from national ambition downward.

Key facts

• 2023 plan, 2040 hydrogen demand: ~460 petajoules (gaseous hydrogen)
• 2026 plan update, 2040 estimate: ~200 petajoules
• Size of downgrade: ~57%, about 260 PJ removed
• Market backdrop: SPY $768.60 (+0.10%), as of 16:42 GMT, 24 Sep 2026

Frequently asked questions

How much did the Netherlands cut its 2040 hydrogen forecast?

The 2023 National Energy System Plan projected roughly 460 petajoules of gaseous hydrogen demand in the Netherlands in 2040. The 2026 update of that plan puts the central estimate at about 200 petajoules. That is a reduction of roughly 57%, or about 260 petajoules of assumed future demand removed over three years of planning revisions.

What is a petajoule and why is hydrogen measured in them?

A petajoule is one thousand trillion joules of energy. Energy ministries use joules rather than tonnes or cubic metres because the unit lets electricity, gas, heat and fuels be compared directly on a single scale. For hydrogen, which competes with both electricity and natural gas across different applications, an energy-content unit is the only fair basis for comparison.

Does this mean Dutch hydrogen projects are cancelled?

No. The revision changes an official planning estimate, not any individual project's status. However, national demand forecasts feed decisions on subsidy volumes, pipeline sizing and import terminal capacity. Projects relying on the forecast to convince lenders face a harder case; projects with contracted industrial offtake in hand are considerably better insulated from the change.

Which companies are most exposed to a downgrade like this?

Electrolyser manufacturers are most directly exposed, since factory capacity is sized against expected national programme volumes. Project developers without signed offtake agreements are next, because buyers gain negotiating leverage when official demand expectations fall. Infrastructure operators face a tariff problem if a backbone built for high throughput ends up carrying far less.

What does this mean for EU hydrogen targets?

European hydrogen policy assumes national plans aggregate up to a bloc-wide production and import ambition. A member state with strong offshore wind, heavy industry and import-capable ports cutting its own 2040 estimate by roughly 57% makes that aggregate harder to defend, and gives other member states reviewing their plans precedent to revise downward as well.

What should investors watch from here?

Three signals: whether other EU member states revise their national hydrogen estimates by similar magnitudes, whether Dutch subsidy and tender volumes are resized to match the new 200 PJ central estimate or left at levels set for the old one, and whether hydrogen backbone pipeline construction schedules are formally rephased rather than quietly delayed.

Sources

• Netherlands Cuts 2040 Hydrogen Forecast By Almost 60% — CleanTechnica