Azerbaijan demonstrated its forward-thinking approach to low-carbon hydrogen when it unveiled its National Strategic Hydrogen Outlook at the U.N. Climate Change Conference in late 2024. Its ambitions were supported by level-headed assessments of the country’s expected domestic hydrogen market, its international export potential and its likely supply of renewable energy, among other factors. A strategy grounded in these realities has a much higher chance of successful development and deployment after it moves to the project stage. Yet, too often, this isn’t the case.

The International Energy Agency found in its Global Hydrogen Review 2024 that production of low-carbon hydrogen could reach 49 million tonnes per annum by 2030 based on announced projects. That would be an increase of 30 percent on the production levels expected only a year before. These announcements have contributed to the positive noise around new projects in recent years, which suggests a