Library
home (Home) TU Delft Repository login Login

Realisation of Collaborative Hydrogen Projects in Dutch Regional Industries

A Multiple Case Study

Master Thesis (2025)
Author(s)

S.R. Poli (TU Delft - Technology, Policy and Management)

Contributor(s)

Z. Lukszo – Graduation committee member (TU Delft - Engineering, Systems and Services)

Amineh Ghorbani – Graduation committee member (TU Delft - System Engineering)

R.J. van t' Veer – Mentor (TU Delft - Energy and Industry)

More Info
expand_more
Publication Year
2025
Language
English
Graduation Date
17-11-2025
Awarding Institution
Programme
Complex Systems Engineering and Management (CoSEM)
Downloads counter
40
Reuse Rights

Other than for strictly personal use, it is not permitted to download, forward or distribute the text or part of it, without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), unless the work is under an open content license such as Creative Commons.

Abstract

The Dutch industry must become more sustainable to achieve the national climate targets for 2030 and 2050. Hydrogen can contribute to these goals by decarbonising processes that are difficult to electrify. The national policy focusses on the five main industrial clusters and a national hydrogen network will be rolled out to connect these clusters. Regional industries outside these clusters also have demand for hydrogen, but the connection to a hydrogen network is uncertain. For the regional industries, there are concrete barriers: high initial investments, uncertainty about the infrastructure rollout timeline and grid congestion, which also affects the integration of electrolysers. Both practice and literature indicate that collaboration between stakeholders helps overcome these implementation barriers. This makes collaborative hydrogen projects a plausible approach for regional industries. At the same time, only a limited number of such projects have actually been realised so far.

There is a knowledge gap regarding how collaborative hydrogen projects in regional industries can be realised. A collaborative hydrogen project is a project in which multiple stakeholders operate around a specific hydrogen application, make interdependent choices, contribute resources and knowledge and agree to jointly implement a hydrogen solution. To address this, the following main research question was formulated:

"How can collaborative hydrogen projects in Dutch regional industries be realised?"

To answer the main research question, a qualitative multiple case study was conducted. Three collaborative hydrogen projects that were in a realisation or operational phase were selected: WEVA (hydrogen-powered barge based on residual green hydrogen), H2essenpO2rt (1.2 MW electrolyser at a wastewater treatment plant in Hessenpoort) and the Hydrogen Cluster for Sustainable Mobility (joint hydrogen refuelling and demand alignment). These cases are all regional hydrogen initiatives with multiple actors in the Netherlands and therefore allow for comparison between different projects. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with eight respondents directly involved in the three realised hydrogen projects. The interview transcripts were coded with a deductive structure based on the Institutional Analysis & Development (IAD) framework and the Social-Ecological Systems (SES) framework. Within these top-level themes, inductive subcodes were added to capture subthemes that emerged from the interview data. The SES part of the framework was used to organise the exogenous, pre-existing conditions (biophysical conditions, actors’ attributes and governance system). The IAD part was used to identify and describe the project-internal action situations. An action situation is the context in which participants make choices and interact that lead to outcomes. By applying the same combined framework to all three cases, the influence of exogenous characteristics and project-internal characteristics on the realisation of the projects could be compared across cases. This comparison made it possible to identify the conditions under which collaborative hydrogen projects in Dutch regional industries can be realised.

The findings concern two dimensions: the exogenous characteristics that shape the project and the project-internal action situations through which actors actually realise it.
The exogenous characteristics influence the necessity, direction and pace of a project. In all three cases, a clear biophysical driver, either an opportunity or a problem, is always the catalyst that makes collective action meaningful. At the start of the projects, the hydrogen technology was relatively expensive and immature, which means that projects needed external financial support to become viable. The attributes of the actors that are involved in a collaborative hydrogen project mattered. Motivated individuals were able to create interest among actors. The regulations surrounding hydrogen applications were often lacking, which created uncertainty but also flexibility. Regulations are co-created by companies and governments during a project. 
Within this enabling context, six recurring project-internal action situations were identified in all three cases: consortium formation, formalisation & contracting, financing, coordination, regulatory development and knowledge development & sharing. Each of these action situations was enabled by intrinsically motivated individuals, some with idealistic drivers. Consortium formation occurs through existing relationships, subsidy linkage or problem-driven. Once a consortium is formed, it is formalised, leading to a 'point of no return'. Subsidies play a decisive role in financing a regional hydrogen project. Coordination during the formation of the consortium is handled by a single connecting actor; after formalisation, coordination is distributed among the actors within the consortium. At the start of the projects, there often is no complete regulatory framework for hydrogen applications; regulatory development should take place throughout the project. During the project, knowledge is developed through 'learning by doing', shared with the actors and translated into blueprints/business cases. Crucial in all these action situations is the participation of intrinsically motivated individuals, some with idealistic drivers. These individuals ensure that barriers can be broken down.
The cases show that these collaborative hydrogen projects could be realised primarily because favourable exogenous characteristics were present at the time: a clear driver, motivated actors and a governance setting that allowed for some flexibility. At the same time, across these different contexts of the three cases, the projects followed a comparable set of project-internal action situations. The projects must therefore work with the six recurring action situations, supported by intrinsically motivated individuals. For wider deployment, the hydrogen solutions must be more standardised and supported by a stable regulatory framework, so that projects do not depend on exemptions or a few highly motivated individuals. Involved stakeholders indicated that intermediate steps with near-zero or hybrid solutions may be necessary before fully hydrogen-based configurations become widely feasible.

This study contributes to the literature by identifying exogenous and project-internal characteristics that influence the realisation of a collaborative hydrogen project in Dutch regional industries. The results give a first structured overview of how such collaborative hydrogen projects can be realised in practice. This study describes project-internal action situations at meso-level. Future research can delve into these action situations in more depth, leading to a better understanding and how future projects can address them. In addition, a mirror study of unsuccessful regional projects can be conducted to clarify the causes of failure and contrast them with the characteristics identified in this study.

Files

Realisation_of_Collaborative_H... (pdf)
(pdf | 2.59 Mb)
License info not available