Within the span of a week, major utilities Iberdrola, Uniper and NextEra all made moves into the hydrogen market, in a reminder that the miracle molecule is not the sole domain of the oil and gas sector. But whether utilities will have the ability — or need — to compete with oil companies in the emerging hydrogen market remains an open question. To date, gigawatt-scale announcements in the hydrogen sector have been dominated by the likes of Shell, BP and Equinor, typically involving plans for meeting large sources of existing, gigawatt-scale demand in industrial clusters and in some cases their own oil refining operations.