At a workshop on the European Hydrogen Bank, organised by the European Commission’s DG CLIMA, it was announced that the budget for the second round of auctions will be set at €1.2 billion. It will be held later this year.

This is good news for the industry. This amount represents 25% of the 2024 budget of the Innovation Fund, the rest being devoted to batteries (€1 billion) and conventional subsidies (€2.6 billion), which also support innovative hydrogen projects. However, Hydrogen Europe would have preferred more.

“We are glad to see the next auction moving forward with a higher budget than the pilot, though it is still short of the €3bn budget announced back in September 2022. We expect the remaining €1bn to be allocated to the next auction to ensure projects continue to receive this much-needed support to be operational by 2030 and help reach the 2030 climate and energy targets,” said Jorgo Chatzimarkakis, Hydrogen Europe CEO.

Favouring the European industry

Hydrogen Europe is also making recommendations on the criteria for these auctions. For example, the association considers it essential to retain a 5-year period for commissioning. It also calls on Brussels to be more flexible when it comes to the cumulation of subsidies in order to speed up the decarbonisation of the economy. Most importantly, the made in Europe card must be played to a greater extent. The press release calls for “European funding support to the European technology value chain is essential. Introducing resilience criteria to preserve a key role for technologies and components made in Europe would help ensure the competitiveness of the European value chain.”

The association recently took part in the public consultation on the terms and conditions of the next auctions. Through its involvement in the European partnership for electrolysers, it has also made a specific recommendation on the design of resilience criteria in the form of pre-qualification criteria.

The aim is to work with the Commission and industry to ensure that the European Hydrogen Bank can bring the sector to scale. This is essential in order to reach the climate targets.

Do you want to learn more about the European Hydrogen Bank auctions? Then our latest articles about the topic should interest you. You can read them here and here.

Article written by Laurent Meillaud and translated by Mariem Ben Tili