Europe – The Clean Hydrogen Partnership has chosen 9 Hydrogen Valley projects after its first call for proposals (2022). The total amount proposed for the nine Hydrogen Valleys is EUR 105.4 million.
The projects will now begin talks for their grant agreements, which should be completed by the summer. The initiatives are focused on producing clean hydrogen for a variety of uses in the energy, transportation, and industrial sectors. It is estimated that the initiatives will be able to attract investments worth at least five times the EU financing, or more than EUR 0.5 billion.
Hydrogen Valleys contribute to the REPowerEU goals by increasing green hydrogen production and supply, and thereby meeting the growing demand from industry, transportation, and other sectors. The European Commission allocated an additional €200 million to the Clean Hydrogen Partnership through REPowerEU in order to increase the number of Hydrogen Valleys in Europe by 2025.
Flagship Hydrogen Valleys
The Clean Hydrogen Partnership has begun grant preparations for two flagship Hydrogen Valleys (projects on a much larger scale than what has previously been supported, i.e., producing at least 5,000 H2 tonnes per year, with interconnections to other places of hydrogen production and/or consumption outside project boundaries). The first will span the North Adriatic region (Croatia, Italy’s Autonomous Region of Friuli Venezia Giulia, and Slovenia), while the second will construct a hydrogen corridor spanning Baltic Sea countries including Estonia and South Finland.
Smaller-scale Hydrogen Valleys
The partnership, led by Slovenia’s largest electricity producer HSE and supported by ECUBES, includes 34 organizations from government, research, and industry and spans the entire value chain from hydrogen production to storage and distribution to final end use as a key energy vector in a variety of sectors. The Clean Hydrogen Partnership has requested EUR 25 million in funding.
The other transnational hydrogen valley brings together 44 organizations from throughout the Baltic Sea region. The Clean Hydrogen Partnership has requested EUR 25 million in finance.
Furthermore, the Clean Hydrogen Partnership has begun grant preparations for seven smaller-scale Hydrogen Valleys projects (at least 500 H2 tonnes per year), with an emphasis on parts of Europe with no or limited presence of H2 Valleys. Each of them will receive an 8 million EUR grant. Bulgaria (Stara Zagora), Greece (Crete and Corinthia), Ireland (Galway), Italy (Lombardy), Turkey (South Marmara), and Luxembourg will be represented in the valleys.
