During three snowy January days, the Expertise of Expectations (EoE) team convened the first scientific advisory board of the project!

Joined by Brice Laurent, Timur Ergen, Tomas Moe Skjølsvold, Markku Lehtonen, Gil Eyal, Liliana Doganova, and Sampsa Hyysalo, we discussed the case of Power-to-X and green hydrogen, and the intricate arrangements of expertise and valuation that support (and challenge) the vision of a hydrogen-based energy transition.

To make sure that we didn’t just talk about the technology in question, we went on a fieldtrip to the DTU SurfCat lab, where engineers and researchers work on optimizing and developing the technical components of Power-to-X technologies. Hosted by Professor Jacob Kibsgaard, we were provided with great insights into the basic research that goes into materializing Power-to-X.

Presentations from the EoE team: The history, contestations, and economic forms of Power-to-X

With a thorough introduction to the technical background of Power-to-X and green hydrogen, provided by senior consultant Tom Cronin, engineer, we were ready to collectively address the driving ideas behind the EoE project, motivations, and the initial impressions from the field.

Professor Julia Kirch Kirkegaard, PI, presented the initial frame for a historical analysis on what might be dubbed “the dance of the electrons and the molecules”; how electrons from renewables and hydrogen molecules have been de-coupled and re-coupled as concerns and energy systems shift over time in Denmark. Here, varying ideas of resilience were discussed as a potential concern to trace, with caution to not assume that the concerns of today were also the concerns of the past. Instead, one may ask how ideas of what constitutes robustness have changed over time.

PhD student, Rebekka Nordal Thomsen, presented a project proposal, focusing on how Power-to-X is contested and problematized in alternative networks of expertise, and what voices and concerns struggle to gain influence in setting expectations. The joint discussion revolved around the question of hype as a tool of exclusion, a tool of making the future present, signaling promises, but delivering none, and as something to be characterized empirically.

Postdoc Julius Kob proposed a line of research on Power-to-X as an economic formation, and how potentially clashing priorities on assetization, derivatives and infrastructural investment shape expectations to the political economy of Power-to-X. The discussion revolved around the issue of the economic forms as real or promised - how can Power-to-X and its derivatives and infrastructures be researched as they are still emergent?

Presentations from the board members: On the expectations of solar power, the green (European) state, and networks of expertise

We were also so fortunate to have presentations from members of the advisory board. Timur Ergen presented his work on expectations to early solar energy developments in the US, as well as on a sociology of a green (European) state, while Gil Eyal presented the networks of expertise framework, motivating the importance of taking expertise serious in cases of uncertainty. A takeaway point was the need for empirically investigating the distributed agency of coalitions of actors, experts or lay, who work to mobilize resources and shape expectations - and how rifts and decline in such coalitions emerge, and can be explained. The advisory board and the team joined in to discuss what expert tasks and problems make up the Power-to-X case; who succeeds in designing the technology to be able to smoothly address problems - and how they manage, or potentially fail, to do so.

Zooming out: The EoE project in geopolitically uncertain times

Considering the increasingly escalating geopolitics, with security at the top of the agenda, the issue of energy security and resilience was an unavoidable topic across multiple presentations, as well as over dinner. While security and resilience cannot be neglected as one of the key issues in the present day, neither can the need for decarbonizing and transitioning - even in times of shifting priorities. How can both resilience and decarbonization be foregrounded when moving forward? And how is Power-to-X imagined to play a part in this? Can we, as researchers, play a part in identifying pathways for future energy systems, where resilience and decarbonization – and a just energy transition - are addressed in unison?

Alongside many more, these are some of the questions and points of reflection we move forward with, thanks to the generous feedback and discussion with the scientific advisory board.

The Expertise of Expectations project is funded by Independent Research Fund Denmark’s ‘Sapere Aude’-grant and housed at DTU Management.

The ‘Expertise of Expectations’ project team was present at this year’s World Hydrogen Week in Copenhagen, and we’re full of electrons, molecules of hydrogen and carbon, and derivates of multiple colours, (ammonia) cracking, infrastructures (be it pipelines, wires, storage, carbon capture), but also of cost and risk calculations. At this conference, there’s no doubt that the ‘green dream’ and hype is challenged for green hydrogen, PtX, and the hydrogen economy more generally – we’re back to “realism”. What matters now, is the work to maintain (and adjust) expectations. It is also clear that actors such as China have a strong presence in this complex market assemblage, but there are also incumbents from fossil fuels blending with renewable energy, attributing the ‘X’ with various valuations.

We are excited to continue on this research journey for the years to come!

The project members (Julia, Tom, Rebekka and Julius) were joined by Daniel Nordstrand Franzen and Emil Nissen from sister project Good-by-Devicing for a communication workshop conducted by SPHERE communications in November 2025. The articulated aim was to develop a shared narrative and lay the groundwork for a strategic communication plan in the respective projects as well as across. These efforts are part and parcel in consolidating a strong focus on STS studies of energy at the Science and Technology section at DTU Management.