Chart of the Month Vol. 9 | Hydrogen state of play and green future

In its 9th Edition, HAEE’s Chart of the Month focuses on “Hydrogen: State of play and green future”.

Europe has taken immense measures to reduce its dependency on fossil gas and speed up the energy transition. Hydrogen constitutes a fuel of paramount importance for the decarbonization of hard-to-abate sectors. The EU has set a target to produce domestically 10 million tones of hydrogen while another 10 million tones is estimated to be imported by 2030. On 14th of September 2022, the European Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen announced the creation of the European Hydrogen Bank which will leverage investments of €3 billion that will boost the penetration of hydrogen to industrial and transportation sectors. Given the momentum, several countries of the EU issued national strategies that define ambitious capacity targets for hydrogen production. Alongside other countries, Greece’s hydrogen strategy is under development and expected to be announced in the near future.

Two waves of Important Projects of Common European Interest (IPCEI) related to hydrogen have been released so far. The first wave called “Hy2Tech”, announced in June ’22 and is aiming to scale up the development of the necessary hydrogen technologies in a cost-efficient way. The second wave, called “Hy2Use, announced in September ’22 and will focus on hydrogen applications in industry and hydrogen infrastructure. Greece is participating in both of IPCEIs with four projects. The IPCEIs’ will mobilize public investment equal to approximately €10.6 billion as well as private investment equal to approximately €16 billion.