Building on the successful work of the Clean Hydrogen Partnership with regions and on the learnings of the BIG-HIT project supported under the Call for Proposals 2015 of the Clean Hydrogen Partnership, support to Hydrogen Valleys has been included in all JU Call for Proposals since 2019. Against this backdrop, projects such as HEAVENN (Call 2019) and Green Hysland (Call 2020) have become pioneers and flagships of the Hydrogen Valley concept.
Building on the above activities, Hydrogen Valleys have been identified in the RePowerEU plan as a essential in order to scale up Europe’s hydrogen economy. This is the case because they bring together clean hydrogen production, storage of hydrogen and distribution to end-uses while creating regional value chains. Acknowledging the role of the Clean Hydrogen JU in initiating the concept of Hydrogen Valleys and of its initial support, the European Commission allocated to the Clean Hydrogen Partnership an additional €200 million through RePowerEU, to double the number of Hydrogen Valleys in Europe by 2025.
Together in the Calls 2022 and 2023, the Clean Hydrogen Partnership signed grants with 13 new Hydrogen Valley projects across Europe.
Altogether, the Clean Hydrogen JU has supported to date 16 hydrogen valleys projects across 15 European countries, out of which 15 projects are still ongoing. Together they represent investment for more than 1 bill EUR with a JU total funding of close to 200 MEUR.
A summary of the hydrogen valleys supported by the Clean Hydrogen Partnership to date can be found below.
Large-scale Hydrogen Valleys (>4,000 t/day of H2 produced and used)
- HEAVENN: Northen Netherlands
- NAHV: North Adriatic, cross-border, Hydrogen valley covering North Italy, Slovenia, and Croatia
- BalticSeaH2: Cross-border, Hydrogen corridor across South Finland & Estonia
- IMAGHyNE: Hydrogen valley across the French region of Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes
Small-scale valleys (>500 t/day of H2 produced and used)
- GreenHysland, Mallorca, Spain
- TRIERES: Corinthia, Greece
- CRAVE-H2: Crete, Greece
- SH2AMROCK: Galway, Ireland
- TH2ICINO: Lombardy region, Italy
- LuxHyVal: Luxemburg
- HYSouthMarmara: South Marmara Region, Türkiye
- ZAHYR: Stara Zagora, Bulgaria
- CONVEY: Hirtshals Port (HP), Northern Denmark
- AdvancedH2Valley: Pays de la Loire region, France
- H2tALENT: Alentejo, Portugal
Hydrogen Valleys will also be supported under the Call 2024. This Call was closed on 17 April. Results of the evaluations will be known in the second half of 2024.