Dr. Maria Rosaria Seminara (p), Prof. Vincenzo Provenzano

Hydrogen has moved to the centre of European and global decarbonization strategies, yet its emergence does not follow conventional models of endogenous market formation. Rather than arising through price signals and decentralized innovation, the hydrogen economy is being actively shaped through public intervention, institutional design and anticipatory governance. It can therefore be interpreted as a policy constructed market assembled to pursue climate neutrality, energy security and industrial competitiveness under conditions of uncertainty and infrastructural indivisibility.
Scaling renewable hydrogen requires coordinated investment in electrolysis, transport infrastructures, industrial adaptation and demand aggregation. These activities are capital intensive, network dependent and territorially embedded, making spontaneous market development unlikely. Drawing on insights from the Multi-Level Perspective, Technological Innovation Systems, Mission Oriented Innovation Policy and Transition Management, hydrogen emerges as a process of institutional construction that reshapes industrial trajectories and spatial economic structures.
The resulting structural transformation unfolds unevenly across Europe. Regions combining renewable resources, industrial capabilities and governance capacity are better positioned to capture value along emerging hydrogen value chains, while less developed territories risk marginalization without coherent place-based strategies. Hydrogen thus represents not only an energy transition, but a reconfiguration of structural and territorial dynamics shaped by policy sequencing and institutional capacity.

Dr. Giuseppe Pellegrini Masini(p), Dr Maria Rosaria Seminara

Hydrogen has moved to the centre of Europe’s decarbonisation agenda, framed as a solution for hard to abate sectors, an industrial opportunity and a geopolitical hedge. Italy’s Strategia Nazionale H2 (SNI, 26 November 2024) follows this logic, projecting an expansion of hydrogen demand from about 1.5 Mtep today, almost entirely industrial, to 1.7 Mtep in 2030 and to 6 to 12 Mtep by 2050, driven mainly by industry and especially transport. The strategy also explicitly contrasts two 2050 “limit cases” for supply, a domestic production prevalent case (70% domestic, 30% imports) and an import prevalent case (20% domestic, 80% imports), which imply sharply different requirements for electrolysis and renewables deployment and therefore very different regional development footprints.

This paper provides a justice oriented assessment of the SNI using the canonical energy justice triad of distributional, procedural and recognitional justice, enriched by the philosophical critique of equality developed by Pellegrini Masini, Pirni and Maran (2020). It combines systematic qualitative content analysis of the SNI with a focused reading of key implementing instruments that territorialise hydrogen through the Italian Recovery and Resilience Plan, notably the ministerial decree implementing PNRR Mission 2, Component 2, Investments 3.1 and 3.2 (hydrogen valleys in industrial brownfields and hydrogen use in hard to abate sectors). The analysis is interpreted through a regional lens that links hydrogen deployment logics to pre existing territorial divides and socio economic vulnerability.

Findings indicate that the SNI’s transition benefits are likely to concentrate in industrial and logistics corridors and gateway regions, particularly where ports and import infrastructure such as the SoutH2 Corridor are positioned as strategic levers. Procedurally, the strategy emphasises implementation speed and competitive allocation mechanisms, while providing limited detail on enforceable participation and transparency safeguards. Recognitionally, renewable hydrogen is prioritised but technological openness remains, while energy poverty and differentiated household impacts are not foregrounded.

The paper proposes justice oriented innovations including progressive cost recovery with targeted protection for vulnerable consumers, regional equity triggers to support lagging and inner areas, stronger transparency and accountability in funding allocation, and mandatory equity impact assessment clauses for subsidised projects.

Dr. Weizhao Huang (p), Professor Nazmiye Balta-Ozkan

Green hydrogen is central to the UK’s net-zero strategy, yet most projects are still in planning. This makes it difficult to evaluate “hydrogen justice” using observed public exposure or survey evidence. This paper develops an ex-ante, spatially explicit Hydrogen Transition Vulnerability Index (HTVI) for the UK from the perspective of communities and households located in potential hydrogen-development areas—an index that identifies places where hydrogen development is most likely to generate unfair burdens or exclusion, given current social, environmental, and governance conditions. Conceptually, we translate socio-ecological risk mechanisms highlighted in recent energy justice research—exclusion (limited participation), enclosure (competition over land/water/energy resources), and externalization (shifting environmental and social costs onto particular communities) into measurable indicators and organise them using a Capability Approach. Empirically, the HTVI is constructed at local-area scale by combining open UK datasets on fuel poverty and deprivation, housing efficiency and heating exposure, local energy demand, environmental burdens, and procedural capacity. We apply an entropy-weighting index method with transparent robustness checks against alternative weighting schemes. To capture early-stage deployment dynamics, we use machine learning to estimate a hydrogen transition pressure score from observable siting fundamentals and policy pipeline signals, which represents the expected likelihood and intensity of near-term hydrogen project development across places. We combine it with baseline vulnerability to map expected justice risks. The resulting HTVI identifies hotspots that may need extra safeguards, including engagement, benefit-sharing, and environmental protections, before large-scale hydrogen build-out.