Shining a light on Scottish hydrogen – reflections on 2025

16 December 2025 | 3 minute read

As we wrap up another year, we’re reflecting on our progress guiding innovators through Scotland’s hydrogen landscape. 

The Scottish Hydrogen Innovation Network (SHINe) was established to foster collaboration between our members and innovators and help companies access existing hydrogen innovation resources. 

Overview of our progress

SHINe continues to be a force for good in Scotland, encouraging collaboration across the hydrogen value chain while guiding innovators through the commercialisation process.

Over the course of 2025, we've seen an increase in engagements with the programme. This has coincided with our attendance at large events such as All-Energy in May and the co-creation workshop event in October.

The programme has also helped us to understand why businesses want to invest in Scotland, or the barriers stopping them from doing so. Recurring points included:

• Smaller, modular projects with lower capital expenditure are excelling but larger projects can only progress with more funding and investment
• Innovation in the hydrogen space is still emerging despite funding gaps, evidenced by SHINe engaging with over 20 early-stage small or medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) seeking support
• Non-hydrogen focused companies are looking to get involved in hydrogen projects.

Other challenges that are preventing innovation and investment in the hydrogen space include trouble securing offtake agreements, technology performance uncertainty, shifting regulations, and investment timelines. 

Hydrogen industry events

Industry events are a great opportunity to meet colleagues and foster collaboration.

This year, we attended nine industry events, including the ETP Hydrogen Innovation Programme Showcase in March, and the All-Energy Exhibition in Glasgow in May.

We also hosted and spoke at a total of 15 events. In August, we hosted the CETP funding online workshop. The workshop helped to guide attendees through the availability of funding for hydrogen projects and connected people with shared interests in the sector.

At this event, we assigned attendees to breakout rooms based on their pre-selected interest in Hydrogen and Renewable Fuels, Industrial, or Regional Energy Systems. The event helped to facilitate several introductions.

 After the event, businesses met to discuss collaborative opportunities around funding and the latest industry innovations that can help to advance their projects and initiatives.

More recently, we hosted a full day, in-person co-creation workshop in Glasgow. The event brought together industry, academia, and early-stage innovators with the aim of overcoming the hydrogen sector’s biggest challenges. These industry-led challenges included:

• Flexible electrolyser operation and long-term degradation
• The practice of hydrogen venting versus flaring
• Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) processes.

Fifty people attended the workshop, with positive feedback from both group facilitators and attendees. As a result of the event, attendees made new contacts and plan to hold follow-up discussions.

We use our events to gather feedback on the state of the hydrogen value chain, so that we can target our support towards the sectors most in need. Attendees at several of our events noted a knowledge gap between industry needs and academic, lab-scale research outputs. Attendees also mentioned that lab-scale trials and testing are often difficult to replicate safely and successfully.

The industry board

Our industry board is a strategic platform for industry leaders to come together and shape the direction of the SHINe initiative. It identifies and prioritises key research and development areas and guides the SHINe project team accordingly.

We hosted three industry board meetings this year. The most recent meeting, in September, focused on the co-creation workshop. SSE, Green Cat Hydrogen, and Storegga provided their insights into the challenges facing the hydrogen sector, which we used to shape the agenda for the workshop in Glasgow.

This year’s previous industry board meetings ran through the status of funding opportunities in Scotland and across the UK. It also highlighted the opportunities for member engagement and provided insights on various government policy changes.

Conclusion

The SHINe initiative is proving to be a positive platform for collaboration across the hydrogen value chain. We're looking forward to continuing to promote Scotland as a global hub for investment in the hydrogen industry in the new year.

If you’re a hydrogen innovator or academic, and want to explore the opportunities in Scotland for you, contact the SHINe team.