19 March 2025
Major enthusiasm for EU’s second Hydrogen Bank
The European Hydrogen Bank’s second auction for renewable hydrogen production has sparked major enthusiasm. A whopping 61 projects from 11 countries have applied for funding, collectively requesting over 4,8 billion EUR in funding. That’s four times the available budget of 1,2 billion EUR from the Innovation Fund—talk about high demand!
Together, these projects boast an electrolyser capacity of approximately 6,3 gigawatts. According to the H2 Bank calculations, over a decade, they could produce 7,3 million tonnes of renewable hydrogen—covering 7% of the EU’s REPowerEU target for 2030.
We don’t know yet which projects (and which countries) made the cut, but we secretly (or not-so-secretly) hope to see some familiar names from our members among the beneficiaries. For now, the European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency (CINEA) is evaluating all bids against the criteria. CINEA expects to announce the results by the end of May 2025. The winners will then be invited to sign Grant Agreements, which should be wrapped up by November 2025 at the latest.
Excited too? Great, because the European Commission is already gearing up for the third hydrogen auction, using insights from this round to fine-tune the process in order to launch the next round before the end of 2025.