Maritime projects among European Hydrogen Bank auction bids

The European Hydrogen Bank’s second auction for renewable hydrogen production has attracted 61 bids from projects in 11 European Economic Area (EEA) countries, eight of which were submitted under the dedicated maritime topic by hydrogen producers with off-takers in the maritime sector.  

The total grant support requested is more than €4.8 billion, four times the available budget of €1.2 billion provided by the Innovation Fund. All bids together account for a total electrolyzer capacity of around 6.3 Gigawatts (GWe). Over ten years, these projects would produce more than 7.3 million tonnes of renewable hydrogen. Every year, this would cover 7% of the EU’s REPowerEU ambition for domestic renewable hydrogen production in 2030.  

Next steps

The European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency (CINEA) is now evaluating submitted bids on the pass/fail qualification criteria outlined in the call text. All passing bids will then be ranked according to their bid price. CINEA plans to inform about the evaluation results by the end of May 2025 and successful applicants will be invited to prepare and sign corresponding Grant Agreements.

In parallel to finalizing the evaluation, the Commission will draw on the lessons learned from this second auction to prepare the Terms & Conditions for a third auction for hydrogen, which it aims to launch before the end of 2025.  

Find out more.

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