European Electrolyser Partnership unveiled as green hydrogen catalyst

The Electrolyser Partnership is intended as a catalyst for advancing hydrogen electrolyser manufacturing capacity in Europe.

The concept of the Electrolyser Partnership emerged in May at the Electrolyser Summit organised jointly by the European Commission and Hydrogen Europe.

Some 20 industry bosses and Commissioner for Internal Market, Thierry Breton, committed to a significant scale-up of the regional electrolyser manufacturing capacity.

The current regional capacity is estimated at 1.75GW per year. To meet the RePowerEU 2030 renewable hydrogen production target of 10Mt would require an estimated installed electrolyser capacity of 90-100GW, depending on the utilisation factors and efficiency rates.

The Partnership aims to address the challenges in establishing and maturing a strong industrial manufacturing base in Europe and identify potential mitigating policies and actions where necessary.

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“The Electrolyser Partnership will act as a catalyst for advancing EU industrial leadership and fostering increased cooperation between manufacturers, key material suppliers and policy makers,” explains Daniel Fraile, Chief Policy officer at Hydrogen Europe.

“We need to work at a strategic level to ensure that the renewable hydrogen consumed in Europe is done with European technology and that it contributes to a just energy transition creating jobs growth in Europe. The Electrolyser Partnership is the right vehicle to get this done.”

In the May joint declaration the parties committed to have in place by 2025 a combined electrolyser capacity of 17.5GW and to further scale that up by 2030 in line with projected demand for renewable and low carbon hydrogen.

The declaration stated that manufacturers were already undertaking projects to increase the manufacturing capacity.

However, three main bottlenecks were noted – the incomplete regulatory framework supportive of the large scale deployment of renewable and low carbon hydrogen, the large investments required in the absence of certainty on future market demand for electrolysers and challenges related to building up integrated supply chains and the availability of components and raw materials at the required scale.

Regarding the regulatory aspects the simplification and shortening of permitting procedures is considered of paramount importance, while on the financial aspects among other actions the EC will seek to support clean tech manufacturing including electrolysers in the next project call under the EU Innovation Fund, planned for the second half of 2022.

The Electrolyser Partnership is the principal response to the third of the bottlenecks.

This dedicated platform will be hosted under the European Clean Hydrogen Alliance, which is managed by the European Commission.

Following a call for interest among the members of the European Clean Hydrogen Alliance, the first meeting of the Electrolyser Partnership is expected to take place in September.