€5.2 billion for hydrogen ‘important project of common European interest’

The Hy2Use project portfolio has been approved for €5.2 billion (US$5.1 billion) in state aid funding by the European Commission.

Hy2Use prepared by thirteen European member states comprises a total of 35 projects from 29 companies across the hydrogen value chain.

Twenty of the projects are for hydrogen related infrastructure, including a total of 3.5GW of electrolysers with expected annual output of 340,000t of hydrogen along with other production equipment and facilities for storage and transport.

The other fifteen projects are on the integration of hydrogen into industrial processes in ‘hard to decarbonise’ sectors including steel, cement and glass.

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The thirteen project proposers – Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Greece, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain and Sweden – will provide the up to €5.2 billion in public funding, while an additional €7 billion is expected in the form of private investment.

“Now is the time to roll out our technologies to Europe's factory floors,” said Commissioner Thierry Breton in charge of the internal market, commenting that hydrogen is key for the green transition of Europe's energy intensive industries.

“Our hydrogen IPCEIs support just that: a first generation of large-scale hydrogen industrial projects in Europe.”

The EC’s ‘Important projects of common European interest’ (IPCEI) are large scale, transnational collaborative initiatives that can provide significant benefits to the region – in the case of Hy2Use in helping to reduce dependence on natural gas and accelerating the hydrogen economy.

The full project details for Hy2Use are still to be made available, subject to redaction of business sensitive information, but includes both “renewable and low carbon”, i.e. green and blue, hydrogen.

Example Hy2Use projects cited by the Commission are Engie and TotalEnergies’ Masshylia 120MW electrolyser development in Marseille on the infrastructure side and Hybrit’s green steel proposal in Sweden as an end use application.

Hy2Use is the second hydrogen IPCEI and follows Hy2Tech, which was approved for up to €5.4 billion in funding in July.

The two initiatives are complementary with Hy2Use focusing on hydrogen-related infrastructure and hydrogen applications in the industrial sector, while Hy2Tech is focused on end-users in the mobility sector.

Hy2Tech was proposed by fifteen member states and comprises 31 projects in the areas of hydrogen generation technology, fuel cells, storage and distribution and end use.

In addition to the state aid Hy2Tech is expected to attract a further €8.8 billion in private support.