What they mean by growing "strongly" is that they expect this part of the hydrogen sector will grow substantially compared with it's currently utterly negligible levels.
As noted in the OP, annual global demand for hydrogen is currently about 100 million tonnes. Later in the same article, they note:
New analysis of announced projects finds that low-emissions hydrogen production by 2030 now has the potential to reach up to 37 million tonnes per year. That is down from a potential 49 million tonnes per year, based on announced projects a year earlier.
So their *best* case scenario is that 2/3 of hydrogen production in 2030 will be from fossil fuels without measures in place to capture associated emissions. That would assume flat hydrogen demand and every project on the books coming to completion. IEA also pretty much says that's not going to happen - and note that basically a quarter projects expected last year to come online by 2030 have been canceled.
IEA also includes assessments of the likelihood of achieving that 37 million tonne target in their
new hydrogen tracker tool. Click "Projects" above the map that the page defaults to and you wil learn:
- Essentially all of the "low carbon" hydrogen production today is from fossil fuels with carbon capture
- Roughly half of the potential growth is for projects rated as "low" or "uncertain" likelihood of completion
- About 80% of the potential growth projects are in either in "Concept" or "Feasibility study" stages
The
IEA Global Hydrogen Review 2025 document, from which the news release draws, states
For the first time, this report systematically assesses the likelihood of announced projects going ahead by 2030. This analysis suggests that 10 Mt of low-emissions hydrogen production is almost certain or has strong potential to be operational by 2030, if the right policy efforts to stimulate demand in traditional applications and emerging sectors are implemented. However, another 19 Mt is from projects that have low potential or are uncertain to be operational by 2030 considering the short time remaining for those projects to materialise.
A more realistic estimate is that hydrogen from low emissions sources (electrolysis and carbon capture) in 2030 will be 1/10 of
current hydrogen demand. (And hydrogen advocates want that demand to grow; currently the growth rate is 2% per year.) So the IEA basically tells us that hydrogen continues to be a dirty energy source over at least the next five years.
Other IEA analysis anticipates renewables dedicated to hydrogen production will account for maybe 1% of total renewable energy production (check out the capacity growth charts on the
Renewable Energy Progress Tracker). Note that this isn't even 1% of energy use - it's 1% of
renewables.
Bottom line: there is no IEA-supported scenario by which hydrogen will be a significant contributor to de-carbonizing the energy system in the next five years, and little support for that changing radically in the next 10 or 15 years, either.
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