Scottish Government Hydrogen Action Plan details: FOI release

Information requested

Information on progress towards the Scottish Government’s 2030 target of 5 GW for installed hydrogen production capacity from electrolysis and any available data in terms of GW installed capacity on current progress against this target.

Response

The answer to your question is provided below and represents the most recent information that is available to share. This information has been gathered through a combination of publicly available sources and direct engagement with project developers.

The Scottish Government published a Hydrogen Action Plan in 2022 which set out an ambition of 5 GW of renewable and low-carbon hydrogen by 2030 and 25 GW by 2045; this is not a target.

The Scottish Government hydrogen production ambition includes both renewable(electrolytic) and lowcarbon hydrogen (produced from natural gas with carbon capture technology).

The information on the hydrogen project pipeline is constantly changing. Scottish Government officials engage with many developers and are informed about projects.

Electrolytic hydrogen production projects totalling 8.4MW capacity are currently operational or in final stages of commissioning in Scotland. We understand that another 64 projects, totalling approximately 24.23 GW production capacity, are in varying stages of development.

Hydrogen Allocation Rounds
The UK Government has a target of delivering up to 6GW of electrolytic hydrogen production capacity by 2030 through the Hydrogen Allocation Round (HAR) process. HAR process is the main UK Government mechanism for allocating financial support to hydrogen production projects. It allocates revenue support funding to successful projects, to overcome the operating cost gap between low carbon hydrogen and high carbon counterfactual fuels.

The Hydrogen Allocation Round (HAR2) shortlist announced by UK Government on 7 April 2025 included 8 projects based in Scotland (totalling 153MW’s).

Two projects in Scotland were awarded low-carbon hydrogen contracts in the first HAR; Cromarty Hydrogen Project and the Whitelee Hydrogen Project (totalling 18MW’s).

Low-carbon hydrogen
Proposed low-carbon hydrogen projects represent a potential 1.8GW of hydrogen production capacity by the end of the decade and are critical to our energy transition. They are clustered in the North East and in Grangemouth and Fife.

It is important to note that the development of low-carbon hydrogen is dependent on being aligned with Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technologies. In Scotland, there are plans to develop the Acorn Project, amongst others, which are aiming to become operational in the early 2030’s.

I hope you found this response useful and informative.

About FOI

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