From technology to trust: the social foundations of green hydrogen in Luxembourg

This article was developed within the framework of the European project LuxHyVal, which aims to build a flagship green hydrogen valley in Luxembourg, connecting production, transport, and use in sectors such as industry and mobility. It draws on the scientific paper “Who Is in and How? A Comprehensive Study on Stakeholder Perspectives in the Green Hydrogen Sector in Luxembourg”, authored by Dr. Mariangela Vespa and Jan Hildebrand and published in the journal Hydrogen (2025). In that study, the authors analyse how key stakeholders in Luxembourg understand and engage with green hydrogen, highlighting why trust, communication, and social acceptance are just as important as technology and infrastructure.

For the LuxHyVal community and a wider audience, the present article translates those research findings into a more accessible narrative: who is involved in Luxembourg’s green hydrogen ecosystem, how they interact, and why their perceptions will drive  the speed and success of the hydrogen transition. The goal is to show that green hydrogen is not only an engineering challenge, but also a social one that depends on dialogue, transparency, and meaningful engagement with people and organisations on the ground. The full  peer-reviewed paper is available here.

Green Hydrogen in Luxembourg: Who Is Involved, How They Engage, and Why It Matters

To understand how a system changes, we must first understand how the people within it think, interact, and make sense of that change. However, energy transitions are often discussed in terms of technologies, infrastructure, and costs. Decades of social science research demonstrate that technological change is also a social and psychological process, linked to perceptions, expectations, trust, and relationships between actors (Devine-Wright, 2011; Huijts et al., 2012). This perspective also applies to green hydrogen: a technology that is still unfamiliar to many, but increasingly central to climate-neutral strategies.

As Luxembourg advances its ambitions for a climate-neutral energy system, green hydrogen is increasingly viewed as a key solution for decarbonizing sectors that are difficult to electrify, such as heavy industry and transportation. Despite its small size, Luxembourg occupies a strategic position at the heart of Europe. This makes green hydrogen particularly relevant for cross-border mobility and industrial applications. But technological potential alone is not enough. Thus, the study “Who Is in and How? A Comprehensive Study on Stakeholder Perspectives in the Green Hydrogen Sector in Luxembourg” (Vespa & Hildebrand, 2025) takes a closer look at relevant questions: who is involved in Luxembourg’s green hydrogen sector? How do stakeholders interact, and what do they think about this transition? In detail, the paper maps a broad ecosystem of stakeholders involved in the green hydrogen sector in Luxembourg, including public authorities, private companies, research institutions, consultants, and transnational initiatives. The stakeholder analysis methodology combines a Technological Innovation Systems approach with qualitative interviews with 10 experts, creating a framework to understand social dynamics in the Luxembourg energy markets. Specifically, the analysis integrates Social Network Analysis and thematic coding, assessing both network structures and actors’ perceptions.

The results of the study can be categorized into these main areas:

  • Different sectors, different expectations

    Mobility is perceived as the most promising application for green hydrogen in Luxembourg, particularly for trucks and long transport. At the same time, mobility is also the sector in which concerns related to health and safety may be more salient. Transport systems are part of everyday life, making hydrogen use in mobility more visible and personally experienced. Industry activities, by contrast, are often spatially distant from city centres and less embedded in daily routines, which can reduce perceived risk. Heating remains the most sceptically perceived application. Technical, economic, and social barriers, combined with the direct involvement of private households, limit its perceived potential and reinforce cautious attitudes toward green hydrogen in this domain.

  • Challenges are correlated with caution across the sector

    While many stakeholders show a high willingness to collaborate, the analysis also highlights key challenges: high infrastructure costs, regulatory uncertainty, and limited public familiarity with hydrogen technologies. Plus, a recurring theme across interviews is the low level of public awareness and understanding of hydrogen. Without clear and transparent communication, misconceptions and risk perceptions may slow down deployment.

  • Trust-building

    Stakeholders emphasise the importance of:

    1. Transparency, to explain benefits and risks honestly;
    2. Dialogue, to involve different actors and communities, and
    3. Visibility, through concrete pilot projects that make hydrogen tangible.

    Building trust and social acceptance emerges as just as important as developing infrastructure.

Why communication and trust matter

Taken together, the technical and sectoral differences reveal a classic pattern of emerging technologies: hydrogen is broadly discussed but only partially imagined. New technologies become credible when they can be mentally anchored to familiar practices and routines. Where such anchoring is weaker, scepticism often grows (Jasanoff & Kim, 2019; ). This is not necessarily rejection, but uncertainty driven by cognitive distance. The technology feels abstract, its benefits diffuse, and its risks harder to evaluate. In these contexts, people tend to rely more on heuristics, social norms, and pre-existing beliefs rather than on technical information (Midden & Huijts, 2009;).

Communication (not information alone) plays a decisive role in shaping these perceptions. Trust emerges through relational processes: who communicates, how openly uncertainties are acknowledged, and whether stakeholders feel included in an ongoing dialogue (Hall et al., 2015). The emphasis on transparency, dialogue, and visibility reflects a deeper need for social sense-making (Renn, 2008). Pilot projects, for example, are not only technical demonstrations; they function as symbolic anchors that reduce perceived risk and transform hydrogen from an abstract concept into a socially observable reality (Ryghaug & Skjølsvold, 2020). ). Similarly, transparent communication does not eliminate uncertainty but legitimizes it, making hesitation socially acceptable rather than a sign of ignorance or resistance.

From strategic vision to social reality

Overall, the results indicate that social acceptance of green hydrogen will depend less on persuasion and more on recognition: recognising concerns, differences between sectors, and the emotional and relational dimensions of technological change. As Kurt Lewin (1951) argued, “to understand or predict behavior, the person and the environment must be considered as a constellation of interdependent factors”. In this sense, studying stakeholder communities, social perception, and community engagement is essential.

Only by understanding how actors interact, perceive risks and benefits, and build trust can green hydrogen move from strategic vision to social reality in Luxembourg – and anywhere else in the world. These insights are highly relevant for initiatives like LuxHyVal, where technological, economic, and social dimensions of the hydrogen transition must advance together

Author

Dr. Mariangela Vespa. Department of Environmental Psychology, Institute for Future Energy and Material Flow Systems, Altenkessel Str. 17, 66115 Saarbrücken, Germany

Funding disclaimer

The LuxHyVal project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement No. 101111984 and is co-funded by the Clean Hydrogen Joint Undertaking.

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