On Monday 19 February, the European Commission welcomed the fact that the pilot auction for the ‘European Hydrogen Bank’ had attracted 132 bids from projects in 17 European countries, exceeding the €800 million budget provided by the ‘Innovation Fund’ (see EUROPE 13299/38).
“The enthusiastic market response to the pilot auction shows the European hydrogen industry is ready to scale up. Renewable hydrogen is an important solution in Europe’s endeavour to reach climate neutrality by 2050”, said Kurt Vandenberghe, Director-General for Climate Action at the European Commission.
The bids aim to create an electrolyser capacity of 8.5 gigawatts, producing 8.8 million tonnes of renewable hydrogen over a decade. On a yearly basis, this would cover close to 10% of the EU’s target for domestic renewable hydrogen production in 2030.
Renewable hydrogen producers receive support from the Commission in the form of fixed premiums per kilogram of renewable hydrogen to bridge the gap between the cost of production and the price buyers are currently willing to pay for renewable hydrogen rather than fossil hydrogen.
The evaluation process will select the projects by April/May 2024, and the grant agreements will be signed by November 2024. The selected projects will have to start producing renewable hydrogen within 5 years of signing and will receive the awarded fixed premium for up to 10 years and only upon certified and verified renewable hydrogen production. (Original version in French by Pauline Denys)