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The European Commission has given clearance for the Netherlands’ EUR 998 million ($1.1 million) and Spain’s EUR 1.2 billion ($1.3 billion) financial support packages for renewable hydrogen projects.
The Spanish scheme will support green hydrogen projects with an installed capacity of at least 100 megawatts (MW). Qualified investments include the production of renewable energy-derived electricity, the production of renewable hydrogen-derived fuels, and renewable hydrogen storage, according to a statement by the Commission.
The government assistance will take the form of direct grants to bankroll capital. Allocation will be through competitive bidding.
Spain will fund the aid through the Recovery and Resilience Facility, a platform run by the Commission and supported by bond issuances and grants including from the Emissions Trading System.
Meanwhile, the Dutch scheme will support the construction of at least 200 MW of electrolysis capacity. Projects should have at least 0.5 MW of capacity.
A project can qualify for up to 80 percent of grants to cover costs plus a variable premium over a period of five to 10 years. The Netherlands plans to hold a competitive bidding this year. Prospective beneficiaries must prove compliance with the European Union criteria for the production of renewable fuels of non-biological origin.
“The scheme will contribute to the Netherlands’s efforts to achieve 500 MW of electrolyzer capacity in 2025 and 3-4 GW by 2030”, the Commission said in a separate press release. “It will also support the EU’s ambitions to install at least 6 GW of renewable hydrogen electrolyzers by 2024, and at least 40 GW by 2030.
“The Netherlands expects that the scheme will lead to the equivalent of around 55 kilotons of CO2 being avoided every year until 2030, which will contribute to the Netherlands’ and EU’s climate targets”.
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At the regional level, the Commission earlier announced the first awards under the European Hydrogen Bank, which aims to scale up hydrogen production. Seven projects across Finland, Norway, Portugal and Spain were to receive a total of EUR 720 million ($779.1 million), according to a Commission press release April 30, 2024.
Later the Commission approved a EUR 1.4 billion ($1.5 billion) joint state aid package put forward by Estonia, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Slovakia and Spain under the IPCEI Hy2Move package for research and development projects on hydrogen technologies and applications.
The IPCEI Hy2Move package, the fourth Important Project of Common European Interest (IPCEI) on the hydrogen value chain, supports 11 companies for 13 innovative projects, according to a Commission statement May 28, 2024. The owners’ share of the investment was expected to be EUR 3.3 billion ($3.6 billion).
On June 24, the European Commission said it had approved a EUR 3 billion ($3.2 billion) guarantee package proposed by Germany for its Hydrogen Core Network project.
The hydrogen transmission grid is planned to stretch 9,700 kilometers (6,027.3 miles) across domestic borders, about 60 percent of which would be repurposed existing natural gas pipelines. Seventeen other prospective hydrogen transmission network operators (TNOs) would contribute 710 kilometers (441.2 miles) of the total length, according to project implementer FNB Gas e.V.
The first major pipeline in the network is expected to start operation next year. The HCN is expected to be completed 2032.
The German state support will come in the form of guarantees for the TSOs, which would help them attract favorable loans to cover initial losses in the ramp-up phase of the project, the Commission said in a news release June 24, 2024.
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