Global hydrogen demand grew by almost 3% in 2025 to surpass 100 million metric tons (MT), concentrated in traditional industrial uses and refining, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said in its recently published Global Hydrogen Review 2026.
As noted in this week’s Hydrogen Billboard report, demand for low-emissions hydrogen grew by 20% in 2025, reaching close to 1 million MT but remaining less than 1% of total production. Sluggish and uncertain policy implementation is failing to address the major barriers to adoption and preventing faster uptake, the IEA said. In addition, it said the impacts of the conflict in the Middle East render the near-term outlook for current hydrogen applications uncertain, particularly for fertilizer production and trade.
New offtake agreements for low-emissions hydrogen reached 1.7 million tons per annum (MMtpa) in 2025, level with 2024 but down from 2.5 MMtpa in 2023. One-fifth of all new agreements in 2025 were firm offtakes (blue bar sections in chart below), concentrated in power generation, refining and other industrial uses, with preliminary deals (orange bar sections) making up the rest. Trade-oriented agreements were higher than agreements for domestic use for the first time, the IEA said.
Refining and industry remain the main sectors in which low-emissions hydrogen adoption is taking place. Based on projects that have at least reached a final investment decision (FID), 2.5 million MT is expected to be produced and consumed in refineries and industrial facilities by 2030. But investment momentum slowed in 2025, as projects reaching FID dropped below 0.8 MMtpa after two consecutive years at around 1 MMtpa.
Source: IEA
