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Washington, D.C. — May 9, 2026. Green hydrogen is no longer a laboratory curiosity or a slide-deck slogan. That was the message from energy industry veteran Vipul Tuli in a wide-ranging interview this week. His assessment: clean hydrogen is emerging as one of the few credible decarbonization pathways for industrial sectors that electricity alone cannot cover. But the scale-up now depends less on new chemistry and more on hard commercial choices around power costs, buyer commitment, and US regulatory stability.
Tuli’s argument starts with a familiar problem. Direct electrification — using renewable power to run factories, vehicles, and heating systems — is the most efficient way to cut emissions across much of the economy. Yet a large block of emissions sits outside that reach. Steel mills, fertilizer plants, refineries, and high-temperature industrial processes cannot simply plug into the grid. For those sectors, hydrogen is considered a possible way to carry clean energy into the molecular structure of the products themselves.
Not every molecule is equal, Tuli warns. Green hydrogen, made from water and renewable electricity, carries a higher social value than the standard grey hydrogen that comes from natural gas. The market is starting to reflect that, but the premium remains fragile. He describes the current moment as a transition from “pilot mentality” to “portfolio thinking.” Companies need to build networks of production, storage, and delivery rather than a single flagship project.
The cost question is central. Tuli points out that roughly two-thirds to three-quarters of the production cost is electricity, not the electrolyzer stack. That means project developers should be less interested in the latest catalyst technology and more interested in where they can get low-cost, high-capacity-factor power. The winning projects of the next decade will be the ones located next to cheap wind, hydro, or large solar farms.
This is where the United States has an unexpected advantage. The Inflation Reduction Act created a clean hydrogen production tax credit that can reach $3 per kilogram for the greenest projects. That type of incentive is rare anywhere in the world. But Tuli argues the credit only matters if it survives contact with reality. Offtake contracts, transmission interconnection, and permitting timelines will decide whether that federal support is enough.
He also sees the US hydrogen hubs as a test of coordination. Dozens of suppliers, engineering firms, and offtakers have been trying to build projects at the same time, and many of them are chasing the same customers. The regions that will deliver actual tons of hydrogen by 2030 are not necessarily the ones with the largest grant awards. They will be the ones with the most mature offtake agreements and the fewest regulatory surprises.
Financing is the new bottleneck. In Tuli’s view, technology risk has largely been retired from green hydrogen. An electrolyzer works. The harder task is convincing lenders that a project will earn money over a 20-year period when the market for clean hydrogen is still forming. Bankers need long-term buyers, floor prices, or some form of downside protection. Without those guardrails, even lucrative tax credits cannot unlock project finance.
The US, like many export-oriented economies, faces a mismatch between supply and demand. Hydrogen producers tend to build where renewable resources are abundant. Manufacturers and refiners, however, are often located hundreds of miles away. Tuli says the answer is not to build one massive export pipeline. The answer is to match the first round of production to clusters of local buyers: a refinery, an ammonia facility, a steel plant that can be converted.
He also urges a more sober view of future fuel demand. Hydrogen will not be burned as a universal fuel in gas turbines for municipal power plants. In the power sector, direct renewables and storage are usually cheaper. Green hydrogen’s real value lies in hard-to-abate applications. That distinction matters because misdirected subsidy will not just waste money; it could delay the projects that genuinely need support.
If there is a lesson from Asia, Tuli says, it is that policy consistency beats subsidy size. He points to the initial round of state-driven hydrogen missions, including India’s commitment to green hydrogen and ammonia, as evidence that national targets create a floor for investment. But they also create a risk of false starts. The US has the financing depth to avoid a misfire, provided it can behave like a normal infrastructure market rather than a policy experiment.
The near-term marker for success is simple: a final investment decision on a commercial-scale green hydrogen plant that does not depend on a government-backed anchor contract. Tuli expects that milestone to be reached in the United States within the next two to three years. Once the first fully financed plant stands, every subsequent project will benefit from benchmark data on construction costs, operating performance, and demand.
On the demand side, Tuli sees corporate procurement as the overlooked lever. A handful of global shipping and aviation companies have already signed green fuel agreements. More need to follow, because producers will not lock in 20-year capacity without visible customer commitments. He urges buyers to treat green hydrogen as a risk-management tool rather than a public relations expense.
Regulation remains a puzzle. Existing state rules classify hydrogen differently for pipeline transport, storage, and utility use. A single federal standard for what counts as clean hydrogen is less important than a uniform answer to the question of how that hydrogen travels across state lines. Tuli says the country is still a patchwork, though the pace of formal rulemaking has picked up.
Tuli is also careful not to overpromise. Green hydrogen costs are falling, but they are not falling uniformly across all regions. Competitive prices in Texas or the Gulf do not guarantee competitive prices in the Northeast or California. Location, labor costs, and clean-power availability will prevent the emergence of a national average price for years.
Despite those differences, he remains more optimistic than many critics. The pessimism, he says, often comes from comparing green hydrogen with a mature grey hydrogen market. That comparison is unfair because the scale-up curve is only beginning. Once green hydrogen reaches comparable cost, policy support will matter less; the market will carry the technology on its own.
The climate logic is also direct. Every ton of green hydrogen used in ammonia, steel, or shipping displaces fossil fuels in a segment that otherwise has few alternatives. Tuli frames this as the core strategic point: green hydrogen is not a silver bullet, but it is a necessary part of the arsenal. Countries that dismiss it may be left importing high-carbon goods or paying a permanent emissions premium.
His final advice to American policymakers is blunt: treat green hydrogen as infrastructure, not as a startup niche. That means funding transmission and water supply alongside electrolyzers, supporting the first set of buyers, and staying patient when one or two projects stumble. The emerging pathway, he says, will not disappear; it will only slow down if investors lose faith in the rules.
Tuli’s interview lands at a moment when global capacity announcements continue to outpace final investment decisions. The gap between what governments say they want and what banks approve is still wide. His message in the United States is therefore less about vision and more about execution. Green hydrogen is ready to be built. The question is whether the financial community and the federal government are ready to build it the same way.
Washington, D.C., remains the test. As Tuli noted, the infrastructure law and state-level energy commitments have already put hydrogen on the same security footing as other clean industries. The next chapter will be written in procurement contracts, power purchase agreements, and loan paperwork. He is betting that the paperwork — not the physics — is where the challenge will be won.
