History
On 26 November 2018, the Economics and Transport Ministers / Senators of the five Northern German Länder decided to develop a joint hydrogen strategy. In January 2019, a ministerial working group consisting of representatives from the participating ministries began work on a North German Hydrogen Strategy and initially drew up a key points paper. On 02 May 2019, the heads of government of the five northern German states welcomed the key points paper of the North German Hydrogen Strategy at their “Conference North Germany” (KND) and asked for the strategy to be finalised for the Conference of Coastal Economics and Transport Ministers and Senators on 07 November 2019 in Lübeck. The KND also asked for a report on the next KND in 2020.

Stakeholder participation
Stakeholders in the context of the development of a hydrogen economy are to be found in a wide range of stakeholder groups, e.g. companies (e.g. the German hydrogen industry), the German hydrogen industry (e.g. the German hydrogen industry) and the German hydrogen industry (e.g. the German hydrogen industry).
In order to involve as many northern German stakeholders as possible in the process of developing the hydrogen strategy, a questionnaire was developed by the cross-state working group. This was sent to all known stakeholders at the beginning of July 2019. The addressees were asked to distribute the questionnaire to other stakeholders as well. Around 230 completed questionnaires were received within the set deadline of four weeks. An initial excerpt of the evaluation was made available to all participants.
In August 2019, around 25 selected experts from each of the five countries were invited to an in-depth discussion at three expert workshops on the strategic fields of “hydrogen in industry”, “hydrogen supply” and “hydrogen in mobility”. Part of the evaluation of the questionnaires was presented in the workshops, discussed on the basis of guiding questions, supplemented and deepened.
This strategy paper is a paper of the Conference of Coastal Economics and Transport Ministers and Senators. It builds on the discussions with and input from stakeholders, especially from business and science, and other specialised ministries. The comprehensive and technically sound results from the questionnaire and the in-depth workshops have been incorporated into the deliberations and preliminary work on the North German Hydrogen Strategy and are reflected in the explanatory texts, in the objectives and the fields of action.

Future joint process
The North German Länder also hope that the North German hydrogen stakeholders will continue to cooperate so enthusiastically in the further process of implementing the strategic objectives. At the same time, the northern German Länder will support the stakeholders, especially from industry, by clearly committing themselves to the development of a hydrogen economy with this strategy, by defining political goals and by working for the most favourable framework conditions possible. Without the coordinated participation of all stakeholders concerned, the development of a hydrogen economy cannot succeed.
This strategy outlines initial implementation steps and rough timetables in four fields of action (see Annex 1). Annex 1):

• Field of action “Hydrogen infrastructure”,
• Field of action “Value creation through hydrogen”,
• Field of action “Hydrogen in guidelines, regulations and programmes”,
• Field of action “Hydrogen acceptance and education”.