Policy Drives Hydrogen Growth; Ammonia Takes Strategic Role

As we move through 2026, the global hydrogen industry is approaching a real inflection point. China’s 15th Five-Year Plan is starting to align more closely with international carbon frameworks, and hydrogen—now officially classified as a “future industry” is moving faster from pilot projects toward large-scale deployment.

Policy Momentum is Clearly Building

The Outline of the 15th Five-Year Plan, released in March 2026, elevates hydrogen to a new strategic level. It highlights the development of green hydrogen, ammonia, and methanol, and encourages extending the value chain toward these derivatives as well as sustainable aviation fuels. It also calls for broader applications across transport, power, and industries.

This signals a clear shift: hydrogen is no longer seen mainly as a transport fuel, but as part of a broader, low-carbon and more resilient energy system.

Shortly after, the 2026 Government Work Report introduced a more concrete step forward. It proposes setting up a national low-carbon transition fund to support emerging sectors such as hydrogen and green fuels. Moving from policy guidance to financial support could make a real difference in addressing one of the industry’s biggest bottlenecks: project financing.

At the implementation level, China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, Ministry of Finance, and National Development and Reform Commission have jointly launched large-scale hydrogen application pilots. City clusters will be selected through a competitive mechanism, with clear targets: bringing hydrogen costs below 25 yuan per kilogram by 2030, and doubling the number of fuel cell vehicles compared to 2025. Instead of direct subsidies, the central government will provide performance-based incentives, with funding of up to 1.6 billion yuan per cluster.

Hydrogen and Ammonia: A More Connected Story

According to industry forecasts, global demand for green hydrogen could reach 8.3 million tons by 2030. In China alone, demand is expected to grow from 320,000 tons in 2024 to over 5 million tons—almost a 15-fold increase. Applications are expanding across chemicals, metallurgy, transport, shipping, and aviation.

In this context, ammonia is gaining attention as a practical hydrogen carrier. Its value is becoming harder to ignore.

One of the long-standing challenges for hydrogen has been storage and long-distance transport. Ammonia offers a different pathway. It can be liquefied under relatively mild conditions, and it benefits from existing infrastructure and well-established logistics. That makes it a useful bridge between large-scale production and end users located far away.

Technologies built around ammonia, namely green ammonia synthesis and ammonia cracking, are increasingly seen as practical solutions. Green hydrogen can be converted into ammonia for easier transport, then converted back into hydrogen where it is needed, whether for transport, power generation, or industrial use.

This “hydrogen–ammonia–hydrogen” pathway helps unlock large-scale deployment and provides a realistic decarbonization option for hard-to-abate sectors such as chemicals, metallurgy, and shipping.

Conclusion

With policy support continuing to strengthen, and the value chain becoming clearer, ammonia—and the technologies around it—is likely to play a much more visible role in the next phase of hydrogen development.