Renewable hydrogen: European Commission approves state aid

The European Commission approved a third Important Project of Common European Interest (IPCEI) to support the supply of renewable hydrogen in the context of the objectives set out in the European Green Deal and in the REPowerEU Plan.

This aid will total €6.9 billion in public funding, enabling seven Member States (Portugal, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland and Slovakia) to:

• deploy 3.2 GW of large-scale electrolyzers to produce renewable hydrogen;
• deploy approximately 2,700 km of new and repurposed hydrogen transmission and distribution pipelines;
• develop large-scale hydrogen storage facilities with a capacity of at least 370 GWh; and
• construct handling terminals and related port infrastructure for liquid organic hydrogen carriers to handle 6,000 metric tons of hydrogen a year.

In particular, Portugal will be able to install 700 MW of electrolyzers.