The European Commission last week gave the green light for state aid towards a combined 3.2GW of green hydrogen projects as part of its €6.9bn ($7.4bn) Hy2infra tranche of Important Projects of Common European Interest (IPCEIs).
However, the bloc has only named the companies involved and the member state responsible for awarding subsidies, without specifying which projects would benefit.
Nevertheless, Hydrogen Insight has pulled together all the available information on which green hydrogen projects have been — or are likely to have been — awarded IPCEI status so far.
Germany
A total of 1.5GW of electrolyser capacity could be installed across ten projects in Germany after the EU’s IPCEI green light.
The largest of these is utility EWE’s 320MW facility in Emden in the state of Lower Saxony. While this project was scheduled for start-up in 2026, this may have hinged on construction beginning in 2023, when EWE claimed it was ready to begin work, as long as the EU confirmed the facility was an IPCEI.
EWE has also secured IPCEI status for a 50MW electrolyser in Bremen, which will supply green hydrogen to the local steel industry.
The utility bundled the two electrolyser facilities into a cluster of four projects covering production, transportation, storage and end use, which it had put submitted for approval. It recently estimated that all four would cost more than €800m in total.
The next largest known project is developer Enertrag’s 185MW plant in the Prignitz-Falkenhagen industrial park in the state of Mecklenberg-Vorpommern. The project, which was originally announced as having 130MW of electrolysis capacity, is reportedly expected to cost €150m-200m in total. Commissioning is scheduled for 2027, with plans for some of the hydrogen to be delivered via pipeline to Cemex’s cement plant in Rüdersdorf in order to reduce the use of fossil fuels.
Enertrag was already a partner on the Concrete Chemicals consortium, which included Cemex and electrolyser manufacturer Sunfire, which had in 2021 announced plans for a pilot 20MW solid-oxide electrolyser co-located with the cement facility by 2025.
Hydrogen Insight has reached to confirm whether supply from the 130MW project represents a second phase, or if the pilot has been shelved.
Multiple 100MW projects in Germany have received IPCEI notification.
Notably, this includes the 100MW Hamburg Green Hydrogen Hub on the site of the former Moorburg coal-fired power plant, which saw exits by oil major Shell and Japanese conglomerate Mitsubishi from its consortium of shareholders. The vacant 74.9% stake was scooped up by Luxcara in September last year.
BP’s 100MW Lingen green hydrogen project in Lower Saxony — formerly a 50MW joint venture project with Denmark's Orsted — has also been awarded IPCEI status, with the output due to meet about 40% of the nearby refinery’s H2 demand.
In 2022, Franz Haking, BP’s hydrogen lead in Germany, suggested that commissioning could be as early as 2025, although it is unclear whether the long process of securing EU approval for state aid has delayed this.
While Haking referred to a commitment from the state of Lower Saxony to provide €708.6m to 12 hydrogen projects, matched by €1.6bn from the federal government, it is also unknown how much of this would be allocated to the Lingen plant.
Developer H2APEX has confirmed in an update to investors that it had received IPCEI status for its 100MW “H2ERO” green hydrogen project in Rostock-Laage, and that it had applied for €167m in subsidies for a total €213m development cost, although it is still waiting on a final grant amount to be confirmed by the federal government. H2ERO is scheduled to begin operations in 2028 and produce between 7,000 and 8,000 tonnes.
Another 100MW project in the area, Rostock Energyport — to be developed by a consortium of EnBW, RheinEnergie, RWE, and the port of Rostock — has also been given the green light for state aid towards its reported €250m cost. This facility, set to be completed by the end of 2026, will be located on the same site as Rostock’s currently operational coal-fired power plant.
Hydrohub Fenne, a 53MW project in Saarland, aims to be the largest PEM electrolyser facility in Europe once completed in 2027, producing 8,200 tonnes of hydrogen per year.
The project’s developer Iqony, a subsidiary of German utility Steag, has confirmed in a recent announcement that the project will cost a total of €150m, although the exact subsidy amount is yet to be decided by the federal government. Hydrohub Fenne will be sited at an existing Iqony gas-fired power plant in the Fenne district of the town of Völklingen, with plans to also commercialise oxygen and waste heat from the electrolyser.
Linde was included in the European Commission’s list of successful companies, with S&P reporting in 2021 that its 24MW PEM electrolyser at Total’s Leuna refinery had been shortlisted fo IPCEI status by the German government. Hydrogen Insight has reached out to confirm whether the Leuna project was given approval, and if any of the original details such as electrolyser capacity have since changed.
Similarly, RWE was included on the list, but has not yet confirmed whether this means its 300MW Get H2 Nukleus project in Lingen has received the green light for state aid. The first 200MW of electrolysers have already been ordered, with planning permission secured in September 2023. The energy firm had warned that year that its planned commissioning dates of 2024 and 2025 for the two 100MW orders would be “impossible” if there were further delays to grant approvals.
Air Liquide has also not confirmed whether its IPCEI is for its planned 30MW PEM electrolyser project in Oberhausen, announced in 2021, or a different proposal — and if the former, whether it has revised its originally announced electrolyser capacity.
Portugal
The largest known green hydrogen plant notified as an IPCEI is
Fusion Fuel’s 630MW project in Sines, Portugal, which accounts for nearly 80% of the 790MW given approvals in the country. This plant, for which a timeline has not yet been disclosed, aims to produce 62,000 tonnes of H
2, with a portion exported to Rotterdam as ammonia.
While no project information has yet been disclosed by the other company listed by the European Commission,
WinPower, it is likely to be a 130MW project.
Italy
The EU gave IPCEI approval to 600MW of green hydrogen production capacity to two developers — Energie Salentine and Saipem — but it is unclear which projects are now in line for state aid.
In a presentation to Italy’s National Agency for New Technologies seen by Hydrogen Insight, local developer Energie Salentine listed three projects: 15MW in Brindisi, 85MW in Taranto, and 170MW in Sardinia, but is not known which of these have received IPCEI status.
Similarly, Saipem has been included in the list of companies, but had only confirmed in 2022 that its proposed 60MW facility in Brindisi, a part of the 200MW Puglia Green Hydrogen Valley in which it holds a 10% stake, had been put forward for the IPCEI call.
Even assuming that all of these aforementioned projects were given IPCEI status, this still leaves a shortfall of 130MW, suggesting that additional projects or capacity may have been submitted by the developers.
France and Poland
Only one company was listed for France’s 200MW: Lhyfe. However, while the French developer has announced its ambition to have 200MW of green hydrogen production capacity by 2026, it has not yet disclosed plans for a specific facility of this size within the country.
The EU similarly listed only one developer, Polenergia, for the 105MW it had approved for state aid. This is for its H2Silesia project, which is planned to produce up to 13,000 tonnes of hydrogen for heavy industry and zero-emission transport in the Upper Silesia region bordering Czechia.
Updated on 20 February to include a 50MW electrolyser project that EWE had included in its cluster, which had secured IPCEI approval.
Updated on 21 February to correct Enertrag IPCEI capacity from originally announced 130MW to recently confirmed 185MW.
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