Discussions at our second SHINe co-creation workshop

22 July 2026 | 3 minute read

Last month marked our second co-creation workshop, following the success of our first event in October 2025. The session brought together industry, academia, and early-stage innovators. Participants discussed the most pressing challenges facing the UK hydrogen industry, how to overcome them, and strengthen investor confidence.

Three challenge areas

At the end of 2025, Members of the SHINe Industry Board highlighted three challenge areas they believe the industry must face to accelerate hydrogen adoption. 

Attendees found the session valuable as an opportunity to brainstorm ways to overcome these challenges. Industry experts discussed the opportunities available through targeted innovation, working methods, wider research and development (R&D), and more.

The second session, held on 18 June 2026, tackled three new challenge areas:

• Hydrogen offtake and demand-side deployment
• Integrated demonstrations
• Planning and consenting

Replicating the successful format of last year’s event, our attendees rotated through three facilitated breakout sessions. The format ensured that all participants had a chance to share their views on each challenge.

Each session provided unique insights and different perspectives from all corners of the industry.

Hydrogen offtake and demand-side deployment

In this session, attendees focused on the gap between demand for hydrogen and supply. The discussions began with an acknowledgement of the progress made supply side since the 2021 UK Hydrogen Strategyopens in a new window. 

However, the challenge focused on how only a small amount of available hydrogen capacity has firm offtake. Also, the industry often faces fragmented demand, competition with low-cost fossil alternatives, and a competitive subsidy environment.

Attendees recognised how energy infrastructure is working to become future ready, but that demand for hydrogen lags supply.

In all sessions, attendees drew parallels in their observations that the cost of hydrogen is too high. Experts noted that this is true not just of the technology itself, but of wider supply chain costs, including new equipment, storage, and transportation.

Despite this, each session provided unique perspectives on how to resolve these challenges. A hydrogen-as-a-service model could help to reduce the cost barriers facing businesses, while providing long-term certainty to suppliers. 

Participants highlighted the benefits demand aggregation models could bring if implemented. In these models, brokers can function as a single point of contact between producers and offtakers. This model could offer improved competitiveness, lower costs for offtakers, and reduce risks for individual buyers. However, these models are currently banned under the Hydrogen Allocation Rounds (HAR).

Engaging customers is also important to increase demand, and demand-side engagement was regularly mentioned in each session. Our experts highlighted that buyers are looking for both price advantages and promises of stability. Often, offtakers may be wary of change, and improved engagement could help to overcome any hesitancy to adopt the technology.

Improved engagement between offtakers and producers could also help the industry to better understand buyer requirements, views, and priorities.

In the first session, attendees also noted that the industry must consolidate specific sectors where hydrogen will have value, including industry, aviation, and maritime. Additionally, members observed how the industry should continue to build up smaller use cases as stepping stones towards a more significant market.

Integrated demonstrations

This session tackled how the industry can transform demonstrations from small working component pilots into a larger scale hydrogen economy. Single-site demonstrations can prove that a technology works in principle. However, technologies must also work at full commercial scale, using multiple production sites and end-users.

Beyond lab scale, projects must also consider commercial behaviour and replicability across regions, sectors, and nations. 

Digital twins could help to simulate the behaviour of different technologies on a wider scale. These digital twins can simulate different end-user cases, human behaviour, and analyse real-world data. 

One example of this is the University of Glasgow and Heriot-Watt University’s TransiT Hubopens in a new window. The collaboration has developed a digital twin to understand how to rapidly decarbonise UK transport by testing different configurations. This could include testing what types of transport services communities and services need using existing data on route frequency, vehicle types, and more.

However, our experts noted that for the hydrogen industry, digital twins are difficult to configure with limited existing real-world data. To tackle this, we held conversations in each session around small-scale real-world demonstrations. Smaller projects could combine to create viable demonstrations across different scenarios.

These small-scale models are used across Europe, where small-to-medium sized hydrogen projects are helping the supply chain to learn, mature, and innovate. 

The need for collaboration was also a key theme in the sessions. Projects can share learnings to the wider industry to better understand what works and what doesn’t. In one session, a participant said that projects are more likely to succeed when they properly engage with the supply chain.

Planning and consenting

Our planning and consenting discussions focused on all stages of planning, from grid level and utility provision to council-level and public consent.

Our participants mentioned that community engagement is one of the most important aspects of consenting. Local communities still perceive hydrogen as dangerous, and public perception and engagement is the key to overcoming these barriers. Attendees discussed the need for knowledge sharing and expressed their desire for greater help from local authorities.

In the second session, participants pointed towards the Nium ammonia projectopens in a new window, which ran targeted events and workshops with relevant stakeholders. This included not just the public, but also other important stakeholders.

If hydrogen projects are stuck at local level, our participants suggested that a standards body or trade association could help to overcome these issues. A set of standards could help better inform local authorities through decision making while improving consumer confidence.

The wider industry also deems grid connections as slow and expensive. Our discussions frequently raised the issue of long waits for connections and difficulties engaging with Distribution Network Operators (DNOs).

One suggestion to accelerate success with planning and consenting was to use digital twin modelling. A visual demonstration for external stakeholders could support the planning process and improve understanding of what a project would look like.

Conclusion

We were pleased to bring together those at the heart of the Scottish hydrogen industry for a second time. The varied and engaging discussions showed the value of collaboration across the value chain to help break down barriers to hydrogen deployment.

If any of the challenges discussed at this co-creation workshop are relevant to you, contact the SHINe team to get involved.