EU proposes €1B Clean Hydrogen Partnership for the region
The European Commission today (23 February) proposed setting up a new partnership to speed up the development and deployment of a European value chain for clean hydrogen technologies.
The European Commission told H2 Bulletin that € 1 billion (US$ 1.2 billion) is allocated to the Clean Hydrogen Partnership.
The new hydrogen partnership will be developed on the work of the Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking (FCH JU). Since its establishment in 2008, the FCH-JU has funded 285 research and demonstration projects, with a total of € 1 billion (US$ 1.2 billion).
The new partnership aim would be producing, distributing and storing clean hydrogen and supplying sectors that are hard to decarbonise, such as heavy industries and heavy-duty transport applications. It will also contribute to achieving the EU goal toward the EU hydrogen strategy for a climate-neutral Europe.
Bart Biebuyck, FCH JU Executive Director, said, “We welcome the proposal of the European Commission to set up the Clean Hydrogen Partnership.”
“The Clean Hydrogen Partnership will build on the success of the Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking (FCH JU) – and the FCH JU activities will be taken over by the Clean Hydrogen JU once the new JU is established,” FCH-JU told H2 Bulletin.
He further added that this initiative is clear evidence of the FCH JU’s success, which managed to put Europe in a leadership position in FCH technologies such as electrolysis and supported the development of integrated hydrogen ecosystems in various European regions.
To become climate-neutral by 2050, Europe aims to transform its energy system, contributing to 75% of the region’s greenhouse gas emissions. Its strategy to incorporate hydrogen into the regions energy system and plans to install 6 GW green hydrogen capacities between 2020 to 2024, leading to one million tonnes of renewable hydrogen. In a longer-term horizon, the region plan to expand its renewable hydrogen electrolysers to over 40 GW between 2025 to 2030, producing about 10 million tonnes of renewable hydrogen.
The EU expects that between 2030 and 2050, renewable hydrogen technologies should be matured able to deploy at a large scale across hard-to-decarbonise industries. Steel and cement are some of the difficult to decarbonise industrial sectors.
The Commission also proposed nine additional new European Partnerships for green, climate-neutral and digital Europe, announcing nearly €10 billion (US$ 12.2 billion) in funding for all projects.
