European hydrogen infrastructure projects can draw from €850m pot of EU funding from the end of April
The 65 H2 projects of common or mutual interest will be eligible for development grants from the EU's Connecting Europe Facility
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Infrastructure on the list is eligible for both accelerated permitting and grants through the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) for energy, which was given a budget of €5.84bn between 2021-27, although none of this finance has specifically been ringfenced for hydrogen projects.
Developers seeking CEF funding will be able to receive up to 50% of eligible costs for studies and works that are incurred during the development of a PCI or PMI.
However, this rises to 70% for costs associated with building projects in the outermost regions of the EU, and 75% if applicants can prove their project provides “regional or EU wide security of supply, strengthens the solidarity of the EU or comprises highly innovative solutions as defined in the TEN-E Regulation”.
Spanish gas grid operator Enagás, which is developing the €2.5bn H2Med pipeline connecting hydrogen supply in Portugal and Spain to demand in France and Germany, has already told its shareholders that it plans to tap CEF funds this year for development studies on the Spain-to-France BarMar subsea link, which had been included in the list of PCIs.
- Priority and urgency: An assessment of how well the project meets the call requirements, and more broadly how it matches up to the EU’s wider policy objectives.
- Maturity: A measure of whether the project will be able to start and end according to its proposed schedule, as well as the status of permits, contracts for external suppliers, and other financing.
- Quality: An assessment of how sound the proposed project is from a technical and financial perspective, with a particular focus on how it is designed and what controls are in place to manage risk.
- Impact: An evaluation of the environmental, social and economic impact the infrastructure will have, including emissions reduction, and how the developer will measure this throughout the timeline of the project.
- Catalytic effect: A measure of how necessary EU funding is for the project to go ahead at all, such as by “overcoming a financial gap generated by insufficient commercial viability, high upfront costs or the lack of market finance”.
A grant offer can only be made if the project is rated three out of five possible points per each criteria.
The latest call for funding will close on 22 October, with an information day presenting the call in further detail to be held on 14 May.
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