Iran War Energy Shock Revives Green Hydrogen Investment Case in Europe and UK as Gas Price Spike Closes Cost Gap

The ongoing US-Iran conflict and the resulting spike in global natural gas prices have reinvigorated interest in green hydrogen — hydrogen produced by splitting water using renewable electricity through a process called electrolysis — across the UK and EU, after several years of failed projects and missed decarbonisation targets. Analysts including BloombergNEF's Martin Tengler caution that the revival may be temporary: previous natural gas price surges triggered short-lived interest in green hydrogen before fading, and the more likely scenario is that mainstream discussions will recede once the energy crisis stabilises. However, the same analysts acknowledge that EU policymakers could choose to re-commit to green hydrogen as a long-term energy security asset, rather than treating each price shock as a temporary trigger. The war context has added a national security dimension to the green hydrogen argument. EU and UK policy frameworks that were developed post-Ukraine and then stalled are now being revisited, with stakeholders in defence supply chains among those exploring hydrogen applications. Plug Power, a US-based green hydrogen producer, is among the companies active in Europe at this moment. The tension between short-term gas price signals and long-term infrastructure investment timelines remains the central regulatory and commercial challenge: green hydrogen projects require multi-year offtake agreements and regulatory certainty that temporary price spikes alone cannot provide.