Japan pursuing a leadership in hydrogen – takeaways from H2 & FC Expo 2025 in Tokyo

Japan’s major hydrogen event, H2 & FC Expo 2025, took place in Tokyo end of February. One of the visitors was Harry Oh, Impact Coatings’ Regional President, Korea & Japan. Here Harry shares his takeaways from the show and thoughts on recent and future Japanese hydrogen developments.

​I attended the 23rd International Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Expo which took place at Tokyo Big Sight in Tokyo from February 19 through 21, 2025. This was part of the Smart Energy Week which also was the venue for such expos and shows as Battery Japan, PV Expo, Wind Expo, Smart Grid Expo, Biomass Exhibition, and Zero-emission thermal power generation. In Japan, renewable energies are expected to play a pivotal role in reaching carbon neutrality by 2050. Smart Energy Week hence attracts and gathers a full range of companies showcasing their latest development in renewable technologies, such as hydrogen and fuel cells, solar power, wind power, etc.

As a visitor mostly interested in the H2 & FC Expo, it was very encouraging to see how relevant Impact Coatings’ coating solutions can be in the hydrogen production and fuel cell manufacturing supply chain, especially when visiting companies’ exhibition booths displaying their capabilities in producing bipolar plates and other components in the cell stacks. Additionally, I was able to reaffirm the commercial viability of recent customer inquiries from Japan regarding our coating solutions durability, performance, and cost. For example, I came across bipolar plate manufacturers showing interest in applying PVD coating solutions from Impact Coatings. We will be sure to follow up on their requests.

The Japanese car manufacturers Toyota and Honda both unveiled their latest developments within FCEVs and stationary fuel cells at H2 & FC Expo 2025.

The main attractions were the announcements from Honda and Toyota in unveiling their latest development with FCEVs and stationary fuel cells. Honda presented their plan to mass produce fuel cell modules for FCEVs by 2027 and fuel cell power generator for stationary fuel cells by 2026, claiming to have achieved cost reduction by half and increasing of durability by two times. Their entrant to the stationary fuel cell market is interesting and creates more opportunities for companies in the value chain. For Toyota, who has been the perennial market leader in FCEV development, the third-generation fuel cell system, is due to be installed in its FCEVs for key markets including Japan, Europe, North America, and China in 2026. With these two major announcements at the expo, the global hydrogen market will continue to grow vertically and horizontally as manifested by a growing number of international companies at the expo present.

Changing the topic to hydrogen production, Japan has an ambitious and challenging goal of securing annual green hydrogen supply of 3 Mt by 2030, 12 Mt by 2040, and 20 Mt by 2050. The latest technology trend in Japan for commercializing electrolyzers is in SOEC and AEM, with PEMEC as a proven technology. From talking to major electrolyzer companies in Japan, they are exploring both domestic and overseas projects to produce liquid hydrogen and/or green ammonia to meet the demand. I could clearly observe that the increasing interest from Japanese companies to look for opportunities in Europe and other regions. The pure domestic possibilities may be limited. For example, one electrolyzer company that we had been engaging with on providing coating solutions expressed they were looking to expand more in Europe. While there are some uncertainties in the Japanese domestic market with projects being paused i.e., importing liquid hydrogen, we still see focus on continued development with the launch of new government plans for making hydrogen production and funding to make usage cost competitive.

Overall, this year’s Smart Energy Week and H2 & FC Expo was an enormous success with 1,492 exhibitors, 68,840 visitors, 200 conference sessions, 649 international exhibitors from 39 countries including Sweden!