International Journal of Hydrogen Energy APC and Open Access: What Elsevier Charges and How to Get Coverage

The live Elsevier journal page gives a cleaner APC answer than the old fee summaries still circulating online:

• Open Access APC: USD 4,080 excluding taxes
• Subscription route: available, with no publication fee charged to authors
• Decision after review: 44 days
• Submission to acceptance: 91 days

That means the old $4,200 shorthand is no longer the best number to use. The current working figure is USD 4,080.

The same journal page also matters for scope. IJHE is the official journal of the International Association for Hydrogen Energy, and the aims section still defines it around hydrogen production, storage, transmission, utilization, fuel cells, hydrogen carriers, and related infrastructure and environmental questions. That field ownership is why IJHE keeps working as a destination journal even at very high volume.

IJHE is not a prestige-only purchase. It is a field-owned journal with a very specific audience.

That makes the APC easiest to justify when:

• the manuscript is clearly hydrogen-energy first
• the work speaks to hydrogen production, storage, transport, fuel-cell operation, or hydrogen-system deployment
• the intended readers are the hydrogen community, not just general energy researchers

The APC is harder to justify when the paper is:

• mostly electrocatalysis with a thin hydrogen wrapper
• mainly a general energy-systems paper
• a materials story that would land better in a dedicated materials or electrochemistry venue

These numbers explain the economics. IJHE is expensive enough to matter, but it is also one of the few journals with genuine ownership of the hydrogen field.

The year-over-year move is still positive. IJHE is up from 8.1 in 2023 to 8.3 in 2024. The bigger pattern is what matters: the journal's impact profile has climbed steadily with the hydrogen investment cycle rather than spiking once and collapsing.

Elsevier's public journal pages give a list APC, but the platform also says the amount paid may be reduced during submission if applicable.

In practice, the real out-of-pocket number can change because of:

• institutional open-access agreements
• country-based pricing adjustments
• funder-supported OA coverage
• library-managed publishing arrangements

That makes the planning rule simple:

• budget against USD 4,080
• then check whether your institution lowers that number

Do not assume coverage just because the journal is Elsevier. Confirm the exact eligibility rules with your library.

In our pre-submission review work with manuscripts targeting IJHE, the APC decision usually becomes obvious once the manuscript identity is clear.

Hydrogen is sometimes the secondary story, not the primary one. The paper may be solid, but if the real contribution is general catalysis, generic battery-adjacent electrochemistry, or a broad systems model, IJHE is not automatically the right home.

Durability and operating-condition realism still control credibility. In hydrogen production and fuel-cell papers, reviewers want evidence under conditions that matter to the application, not just the single best point on the curve.

Very high volume does not mean careless review. IJHE publishes a lot, but the field specialists who read it are good at spotting papers that do not really belong in the hydrogen lane.

That is why paying the APC for the wrong journal fit is usually worse than paying a similar APC for the right audience.

The current IJHE APC is USD 4,080 excluding taxes, and authors can still avoid that fee entirely by using the subscription route.

That means the real editorial question comes first:

• if the manuscript is truly hydrogen-owned, IJHE is one of the most defensible paid targets in the field
• if the manuscript is only hydrogen-adjacent, changing journals is usually smarter than solving the APC