Aid worth €6.9 billion divided between various Member States
The European Commission has given the go-ahead to State funding of €6.9 billion for seven European Union Member States, including Portugal, to invest in ‘green’ hydrogen – made using power only from renewable sources – with 790 MW of electrolysers expected to be installed in Portugal.
In a statement, the EU executive said that it had approved, “under EU State aid rules, a third major project of common European interest to support hydrogen infrastructure” called Hy2Infra, covering Portugal, as well as France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland and Slovakia.
“This important project of common European interest is expected to increase the supply of renewable hydrogen, thus reducing dependence on natural gas and helping to achieve the objectives of the European Green Deal and the REPowerEU (energy) Plan,” said the commission.
Under this initiative, the seven countries involved are expected to provide up to €6.9 billion in public funding to unlock €5.4 billion in private investment, in a total of 33 projects involving 32 companies.
According to the Brussels data, Hy2Infra will cover a “large part of the hydrogen value chain” – supporting the deployment of 3.2 gigawatts of large-scale electrolysers to produce renewable hydrogen and the installation of new and reused hydrogen transport and distribution pipelines, covering some 2,700 kilometres.
In Portugal, 790 megawatts of electrolysers are to be installed, in a project involving WinPower – a locally based company.
Also planned is the development of large-scale hydrogen storage facilities with a capacity of at least 370 gigawatt hours and the construction of handling terminals and related port infrastructure for liquid organic hydrogen carriers to process 6,000 tonnes of hydrogen per year.
Questioned by Lusa about the initiative at the news conference, the European Commission’s competition spokeswoman, Lea Zuber, declined to divulge figures (for the financial support approved) by country.
She also said that the EU executive “is not concerned” about suspicions of corruption in Portugal within the hydrogen sector – even though there is an ongoing criminal case that caused the fall of the absolute majority government, as well as the resignation of the country’s prime minister – despite his not being a formal suspect.
According to the commission’s press release, “the participants will also collaborate on interoperability and common standards to avoid barriers and facilitate future market integration.
This “important project of common European interest will support the gradual creation of an EU-wide hydrogen infrastructure from different regional groupings”.
The statement adds, “several Member States – France, Germany, Poland and Portugal – have included their participation in IPCEI Hy2Infra in their Recovery and Resilience Plans, thus being able to partially finance some of their projects through the Recovery and Resilience Facility.”
Source material: LUSA
