Hydrogen industry: EU Hydrogen Bank should be a driving force for European hydrogen industry

The EU's Hydrogen Bank is today concluding its second auction, where 1.2 billion euros in support for green hydrogen production will be distributed. The hydrogen industry sees the auction as an important milestone and calls on both the EU Commission and the Danish government to make the Hydrogen Bank a central tool for strengthening the entire European hydrogen industry.

- The Hydrogen Bank is a very powerful tool, and it will be exciting to see both the number of projects that have applied and how they are distributed across Europe. The bank is an important and effective tool for ensuring the rollout of green hydrogen production in Europe, and thus also the security of supply and industrial resilience, which it has been emphasized again these days that we in Europe need so much, says CEO of the Hydrogen Industry Tejs Laustsen Jensen in a press release.

The hydrogen industry believes that it is crucial to strengthen both the production of green hydrogen and the underlying value chains, including electrolysis and other technology for hydrogen production. The organization recommends that the Hydrogen Bank be strengthened in the upcoming Clean Industrial Deal and combine support for hydrogen production with strict requirements for technological production in Europe.

It is still unknown whether there are Danish applicants among the participants in the auction, but the Hydrogen Industry assesses that Danish projects have good conditions to compete.

- We saw that Danish hydrogen projects at the Danish PtX tender from 2023 were already competitive in terms of price compared to the hydrogen bank's price criterion from the pilot auction in 2023. The fact that we only became certain about the establishment of a Danish hydrogen infrastructure close to the application deadline may have had an impact on Danish projects' appetite for applying. But regardless of the result in this round, the framework in the bank is good and effective. Denmark should follow the example of other countries in future rounds and contribute to the built-in national mechanism known as Auction-as-a-Service, combining Danish and European tenders, says Tejs Lausten Jensen.

The EU Commission is expected to announce the winners of the auction in May or June.

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