Green hydrogen offers new direction for Ukraine’s agriculture sector and beyond

Amid the dev­as­ta­tion of Russia’s war aggres­sion, Ukraine is press­ing ahead with an ambi­tious trans­for­ma­tion. The coun­try is not only striv­ing to break free from fos­sil fuels but is also align­ing itself with the EU’s renew­able ener­gy frame­work — steps seen as cru­cial to its long-term acces­sion prospects. At the same time, Ukraine is work­ing on coun­try eco­nom­ic recov­ery, with agri­cul­ture at the heart of its strat­e­gy, to strength­en food secu­ri­ty and to secure vital export rev­enues.

New pathways on the horizon

Despite the war, the green tran­si­tion is increas­ing­ly viewed as an oppor­tu­ni­ty. The nation’s renew­able ener­gy poten­tial could not only meet domes­tic elec­tric­i­ty demand but also fuel new indus­tries. Among the most promis­ing avenues is green hydro­gen — pro­duced by using new­able ener­gy to split water and its deriv­a­tives. One in par­tic­u­lar, Green Ammo­nia, holds spe­cial sig­nif­i­cance: as a key ingre­di­ent in nitro­gen-based fer­til­iz­ers, it could become a cor­ner­stone of a sus­tain­able agro-sec­tor. Recent stud­ies have point­ed to Ukraine’s poten­tial in Green Ammo­nia and E‑fertilizer pro­duc­tion, even though the tra­di­tion­al indus­tries remain heav­i­ly dis­rupt­ed by war.

GIZ projects H2-dip­lo Ukraine and PROGRESS, both fund­ed through the Inter­na­tion­al Cli­mate Ini­tia­tive (IKI), have teamed up to explore what a green val­ue chain could look like. Togeth­er with polit­i­cal part­ners, sci­en­tists and civ­il soci­ety rep­re­sen­ta­tives, they facil­i­tate a debate to devel­op the dis­course fur­ther, focussing on eco­nom­ics and financ­ing, tech­ni­cal fea­si­bil­i­ty, sus­tain­abil­i­ty, and strate­gic mar­ket­ing ques­tions.

Capacity building as a door opener for debate

The scope of the coop­er­a­tion includes capac­i­ty-build­ing, tech­ni­cal analy­ses, stake­hold­er dia­logues, study trips and pilot project guid­ance. On 27^th August 2025, in coop­er­a­tion with the Inter­na­tion­al PtX Hub, the H2-dip­lo Ukraine and PROGRESS projects orga­nized a one-day hybrid train­ing that drew more than 30 par­tic­i­pants from gov­ern­ment, busi­ness asso­ci­a­tions, acad­e­mia and inter­na­tion­al part­ners. The work­shop com­bined sec­tor deep-dives with case stud­ies, before open­ing into a live­ly dis­cus­sion of Ukraine’s options. The take­away was strik­ing­ly con­sis­tent: obsta­cles remain, but the com­bi­na­tion of tech­ni­cal exper­tise, renew­able poten­tial, agri­cul­tur­al strength and the deter­mi­na­tion to “build back bet­ter” gives Ukraine a sol­id plat­form for progress.

What comes next? 

Next steps are already under­way. A new study exam­in­ing Ukraine’s spe­cif­ic poten­tial for Green Ammo­nia and E‑fertilizer is set to launch a broad­er dia­logue on polit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic path­ways. Advi­so­ry ser­vices on green financ­ing and tar­get­ed capac­i­ty-build­ing mea­sures for spe­cif­ic stake­hold­er groups are also in prepa­ra­tion — evi­dence that, even in the shad­ow of war, Ukraine’s green future is being active­ly shaped.

H2-dip­lo – Decar­boniza­tion Diplo­ma­cy is a glob­al pro­gramme, com­mis­sioned by Ger­man Fed­er­al For­eign Office and imple­ment­ed by GIZ.

The region­al project “Pro­mot­ing Green Deal Readi­ness in the East­ern Part­ner­ship Coun­tries” (PROGRESS), fund­ed by the Fed­er­al Min­istry for the Envi­ron­ment, Cli­mate Action, Nature Con­ser­va­tion and Nuclear Safe­ty of Ger­many (BMUKN) and imple­ment­ed in Ukraine by a con­sor­tium of orga­ni­za­tions, includ­ing the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Inter­na­tionale  Zusam­me­nar­beit (GIZ), the Organ­i­sa­tion for Eco­nom­ic Co-oper­a­tion and Devel­op­ment (OECD), and the Insti­tute for Eco­nom­ics and Fore­cast­ing of the Nation­al Acad­e­my of Sci­ences of Ukraine.