“The most important thing in our business is cost,” Garabedian said, but “it doesn’t matter what your electrolyzer costs — it’s what your total installed plant costs.”
However, cost comparisons between different electrolyzer manufacturers and fully built green-hydrogen facilities are far from an exact science in this industry, said Pavel Molchanov, an energy analyst at Raymond James.
The world had approximately 2 gigawatts of hydrogen electrolyzers in operation at the end of 2024, according to the International Energy Agency’s “Global 2025 Hydrogen Review.” That amount, Molchanov said, is “a rounding error” compared with global fossil fuel–based hydrogen capacity.
Electrolyzer companies face a tough market, Molchanov added. The International Energy Agency reports that global electrolyzer manufacturing capacity expanded from just over 10 gigawatts in 2022 to more than 50 gigawatts in 2025. But in that time, forecasted demand for green hydrogen has plummeted, which leaves “far more manufacturing capacity available than what’s getting deployed,” Molchanov said. “That’s a lot of underutilized factories.”
That imbalance between electrolyzer supply and demand has taken its toll. Last week, major U.S. engine and generator manufacturer Cummins announced it was halting commercial efforts for its electrolyzer business, which constitutes about 1 gigawatt of manufacturing capacity in the U.S. and Spain. Demand for electrolyzers has “dried up,” Chief Financial Officer Mark Smith said in a November earnings call.
Garabedian conceded that challenge: “We definitely built the company for growth, and we’ve seen growth slower than we anticipated and hoped. As I look at the market, I think we’re looking at another year and a half of muted activity.”
But he also stressed that buyers for green hydrogen and products made from it aren’t likely to be found in the U.S., at least not in the near term. Neither the politics under Trump nor the economics are in its favor.
The country’s cheap and abundant supply of fossil gas means that green hydrogen remains roughly three times more expensive than “gray hydrogen,” which is derived from fossil gas. This is true even for projects that secure the 45V hydrogen tax credits, which expire at the end of next year.
“No one in the U.S. is thinking about deep decarbonization these days,” Garabedian said. “And the price of natural gas is such in the U.S. that it’s hard to impossible for green hydrogen to compete head-to-head economically.”
In Europe, by contrast, gas prices are regularly three to four times as high as they are in the U.S., making green hydrogen more cost competitive, Molchanov noted. And policies set by the European Union and adopted by national governments require major industries to meet carbon-cutting targets, which are expected to spur demand for clean hydrogen.
That’s why the HIF Global and Synergen projects that Electric Hydrogen is supplying electrolyzers to in the U.S. are aimed at exporting their products, primarily to Europe, Garabedian said.
It also explains Electric Hydrogen’s push into Europe for its next wave of electrolyzer deals. In 2024, Germany-based energy company Uniper picked Electric Hydrogen for a 200-megawatt green hydrogen and ammonia plant, set to start production in 2028. Garabedian said the company will soon announce a similarly scaled German project, though he declined to provide more details.
“It is a complicated global market. And we, as an American supplier, have a strategy to address that,” he said. “Unfortunately, it does mean moving a lot of our supply chain to Europe for European suppliers.”
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Great Job Jeff St. John & the Team @ Canary Media for sharing this story.
