Existing glass furnaces can be run on hydrogen
Hydrogen fuels steel and glass production
Recent industrial projects demonstrate hydrogen’s feasibility as a fuel and chemical reactant, although commercial scale-up is still distant
Breakthrough projects in the first half of 2021 in Sweden and the UK to replace coal in steelmaking and natural gas in glass manufacturing with hydrogen deliver first products, highlighting hydrogen’s potential to curb emissions in hard-to-abate sectors. Three Swedish firms—steelmaker SSAB, state-owned miner LKAB and Vattenfall—set up the Hydrogen Breakthrough Ironmaking Technology (Hybrit) partnership in 2016 in an effort to replace coal with hydrogen in steelmaking. While several steel firms—including Luxembourg’s Arcelor Mittal and Germany’s Thyssenkrupp—have announced hydrogen projects to decarbonise operations or for direct use in production, SSAB claims to have delivered the first batc
Also in this section
10 December 2025
Project developer Meld Energy ready to accelerate 100MW project in Humber region after securing investment from energy transition arm of private equity firm Schroders Capital
9 December 2025
BP and Engie abandon large-scale green hydrogen projects in Gulf state as developers in all regions continue to struggle with lack of firm offtake
5 December 2025
European Commission highlights rapid growth of Chinese production this year, as it retains strict procurement rules in latest European Hydrogen Bank subsidy auction
2 December 2025
Oil major cites deteriorating demand and a planning debacle as it abandons one of UK’s largest blue hydrogen projects
