Saudi Arabia has finished building a green hydrogen project it says is the largest in the world, using solar and wind power to produce fuel aimed at reducing planet-warming fossil fuel consumption in shipping and other heavy industries.
If it delivers on its promises, the facility may help answer the question of whether green hydrogen can graduate from demonstration projects to a real place in the global economy.
Here’s what to know
According to a video by clean energy expert and YouTuber The Electric Viking, the new facility is the largest green hydrogen plant ever built.
The Electric Viking explained that Saudi Arabia’s $8.4 billion NEOM Green Hydrogen Project has moved into commissioning, with commercial production planned for 2027.
For export, the site is expected to produce about 1.32 million tons of green ammonia each year, using around 661 tons of carbon-free hydrogen produced daily at Oxagon on the Red Sea coast.
At the center of the facility are 2.2 gigawatts of electrolyzers, which, according to the creator, are the largest installation of its kind in the world. Supplying them will be roughly 4 gigawatts of renewable energy, including a 2.2-gigawatt solar farm and 257 wind turbines that add another 1.6 gigawatts.
If the project reaches those targets, it could eliminate roughly 5.5 million tons of carbon pollution a year and provide a lower-emission fuel source for sectors that are harder to clean up than passenger cars or household appliances.
More background
Across the industry, many announced green hydrogen projects have struggled to become operational.
According to the video, ING estimated that about 50 hydrogen projects had been publicly canceled, with the high cost of green hydrogen relative to fossil-fuel-based gray hydrogen a major reason.
That price gap is a serious issue for shipping, chemicals, and fertilizer production, all of which are highly cost-sensitive. The creator said green hydrogen in favorable regions runs about $2.04 to $2.72 per pound, compared with roughly $0.68 to $1.13 per pound for gray hydrogen.
NEOM seems to have addressed one of the biggest problems by securing a buyer in advance. The video said Air Products signed a 30-year exclusive off-take agreement for the plant’s entire ammonia output, helping unlock $6.1 billion in financing from 23 banks.
If large facilities can reliably produce cleaner fuels at scale, ports, factories, and freight networks may gain more practical ways to reduce pollution.
What’s being done?
Rather than shipping hydrogen directly, the project is built around ammonia.
Moving hydrogen is costly and complicated because it has to be either heavily compressed or cooled to very low temperatures, whereas ammonia already travels through an established global transport network.
The video also said Air Products is finalizing an agreement with Norway’s Yara to market the ammonia globally. Another advantage is that ammonia already moves through a mature trade system: about 22 million tons are traded each year, meaning the ships, port infrastructure, and safety procedures are mostly already in place. That could help reduce costs and speed wider adoption.
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