In a landmark event for power-to-x (PtX) in early 2026, the vast city of Los Angeles ditched coal-generated electricity from the Intermountain power project in Utah in favour of a combination of green hydrogen and natural gas.

Despite US President Donald Trump’s declared hostility towards green energy, the project is on track to deliver entirely carbon-free energy on a sliding scale. The first of their kind, the turbines are currently burning a mix of 70% natural gas and 30% green hydrogen, with hydrogen’s percentage rising steadily to 100% within 20 years.

The former coal-burning giant has a unique natural advantage. Surplus production of hydrogen will be stored in up to 100 underground salt caverns for retrieval according to need. The US activist organisation Green Hydrogen Coalition explains that just one of these caverns can take 5,500 tonnes of hydrogen gas: ‘This is equivalent to 200,000 hydrogen buses and 1,000,000 hydrogen fuel cell cars.’ Running at full load, 40 electrolysers can produce 100 t/d of hydrogen.

California is ahead of the game though in PtX in the US.

But the Intermountain power project is unusual. Elsewhere in the US, clean-fuel projects face demanding timelines under obstructive new tax regulations, especially compared with Canada’s more stable investment rules. Simultaneously, competition for low-cost power has got tougher because prospective PtX initiatives find themselves battling with data centres.

Canada may be leaving the US behind. Quebec’s Varennes e-methanol project was rescued in February 2026 by StormFisher Hydrogen, in an attempt to turn it into North America’s first commercial plant of its kind. Varennes had fallen into creditor protection as impatient investors took their money elsewhere. StormFisher Chief Executive Judson Whiteside is aiming to raise approximately $530mn to revive the operation. He says one of the project’s commercial advantages is access to baseload hydro power, which is more reliable than the hourly matched wind and solar power which US competitors must use. If things go well, StormFisher will sell to the shipping industry in Europe.

Across the Atlantic, France’s EU-supported Verso is one of the more ambitious PtX developers, with no less than eight e-fuel plants in its sights in three continents. Verso is pinning its future on e-SAF (synthetic sustainable aviation fuel derived using renewable energy) with four operations in France, two in Finland and an embryonic one in the US. Verso announced in late March that it is ‘on track to deliver first volumes as early as 2030’.

These projects are based on similar science – biogenic CO₂ capture, water electrolysis powered by renewable and low-carbon electricity, and e-methanol synthesis. And the goal is to do all this within a single standardised facility. The long-term goal is to produce 500,000 t/y of e-SAF.

Verso is working with Rely, a specialist in the technicalities of e-methanol plants, in the design and maintenance phase of these complex operations that involve the integration of the electrolyser with power conversion, purification and drying units, and control systems. As Rely notes from prior experience: ‘Minor issues can [quickly] escalate into system-level failures.’

Before these e-SAF operations happen, Verso expects to launch its first PtX operation in 2029. Called CarlHYng, it will have a capacity of up to 10,000 t/y of hydrogen, of which 6,000 tonnes will be renewable. The buyer, a German steel-manufacturer, will receive the energy through a cross-border pipeline running through Verso’s site.

Difficulties abound
The path to PtX is littered with failed – or at least over-optimistic – ambitions.

An example is GreenGo Energy’s planned €8bn Megaton hybrid energy park in Denmark that two years ago was to produce 1mn t/y of green fuel from solar and wind, using a 2 GW electrolyser. The capacity of the project has since been slashed by over 90%. GreenGo is now investigating another high-capacity option in Mauritania.

The refinancing of European Energy and Mitsui’s Kasso e-methanol plant earlier this year also illustrates the difficulties of pioneering in PtX. Danish lender Nordea and Japanese bank SMBC stepped in last year with an unspecified amount of bridging finance while the owners look for long-term funding. The official release said the temporary loans would ensure the plant’s ‘continued operation’.

After producing the first drops of raw e-methanol in mid-2025, Kasso secured long-term clients, but they were obviously not enough, despite signing up customers including Danish shipping giant Moller Maersk, Lego and Novo Nordisk. (The company did not respond to New Energy World’s request for information about its long-term funding.)

Balance is best
Yet PtX is progressing.

In late 2025 Denmark’s Everfuel did the energy double. Its commercial-scale electrolyser plant, HySynergy, helped balance the local power grid while simultaneously producing green hydrogen. According to Everfuel, which sells green hydrogen to trucks and taxis, it’s a world first: ‘This milestone demonstrates how green hydrogen production can actively support the electricity system and create a flexible, sustainable energy supply for the benefit of Danish society.’ The breakthrough was the result of a lengthy collaboration between Everfuel, state-owned power company Energinet and Centrica, the owner of British Gas. The balancing happens automatically and takes just five minutes to get up to speed.

One of Europe’s first large-scale electrolysis plants producing green hydrogen, HySynergy despatched its first trailer-load to Germany late last year. But it has certainly not been plain sailing for Everfuel. Since its listing in 2020 it has run into a wide variety of teething problems, predictably so in an immature technology. Some were technical, while others originated in the supply chain, in foot-dragging politics, rising costs, slow delivery of hydrogen-powered vehicles and a shortage of trained people. Founder and Chief Executive Jacob Krogsgaard has highlighted these challenges along with the critical requirement to balance production with the power grid.

Senior Vice-President Kim Willerslev Jakobsen of Danish national system operator Energinet says: ‘It’s one thing to produce e-fuels; quite another to marry them with the grid.’ In March 2026, Energinet had to put a three-month stop to new grid connections as it races to boost capacity. According to the energy group, it’s trying to accommodate projects, including those from PtX, that require no less than 60 GW of new electricity consumption. This is in a country where peak electricity demand is about 7 GW.

Demand has taken the system by surprise. ‘The speed and scale of the new, very large consumption projects – particularly from data centres, battery facilities and power-to-x plants – could not have been anticipated at this magnitude and far exceed official forecasts,’ Energinet explains. This is a Europe-wide issue as queues grow longer for connections to grids designed for a different era.  

Fundamentally, the success of PtX is critically tied to the growth of renewables. As Jakobsen points out: ‘This development [e-fuels] will take place at the same time as the increase in renewable production such as large PV plants and offshore wind,’ citing the importance of flexible production linked to the availability of renewable power so that the PtX plants aren’t a major drain on the overall grid.

‘But at the moment we don’t know – we need to know more about the plants and how they will operate. It is therefore an area we follow closely. Close dialogue and cooperation with the hydrogen plants is necessary because we need smart, flexible solutions, not “full capacity” connections to the grid. It is not a realistic scenario that the current transmission grid will be four or six times the size of today because production and consumption will be four or six times higher than today.’

Fundamentally, the success of power-to-x is critically tied to the growth of renewables.

Hydrogen pipeline
Nor will the PtX industry know until the end of 2026 how successful will be the 133 km-long cross-border hydrogen pipeline between Denmark and Germany – or even whether it will go ahead at all. The money is in place – a state-backed loan of DK7.5bn [over $1bn] repayable by Energinet through user tariffs, plus further state ‘operational support’ of up to DK10.6bn [$1.63bn] over 30 years. The booking process opened in January under which potential users must commit to a combined 500 MW of capacity. Planned total capacity for the pipeline is about 3 GW, but the pipeline won’t go ahead if insufficient capacity is booked.

Meantime it’s wait and see. ‘The capacity sale gives us a clearer picture of the need for the transport of green hydrogen and the time horizon that the players are working with,’ explains Michael Linnemann Pedersen, Area Manager for Megaprojects at Energinet. ‘The minimum booking of 0.5 GW will be an important indicator of the pace.’

Yet if the numbers come up, Europe’s first green hydrogen pipeline will open for business in 2030.

Despite formidable challenges, ambitions remain high. Out of the more than 200 research and demonstration PtX projects on the table in one form or another in 2020, perhaps a dozen industrial-scale operations could be producing e-fuels by 2030, according to EU predictions. And that’s not too far away.

• Further reading: ‘Europe achieves e-fuels milestones as large-scale PEM and e-methanol plants begin production’. BASF has launched Germany’s largest green hydrogen electrolyser while European Energy and Mitsui brought the world’s first large-scale commercial e-methanol facility into production.
• ‘Why renewable methanol is a cornerstone of global decarbonisation’.  Renewable methanol is a versatile, low-carbon solution for hard-to-abate sectors. Discover more about the global drivers for an increasing renewable methanol market and recent project developments.