Lakatos Attila

CEOs from the world’s leading energy, automotive, and technology companies have come together to issue a strong and unified message to European policymakers: Hydrogen mobility is essential to Europe’s climate goals, industrial competitiveness, and strategic resilience – and urgent action is needed on infrastructure buildout. In a joint letter addressed to EU and Member State leaders, the CEOs urge policymakers to firmly position hydrogen mobility at the heart of Europe’s clean transport and industrial strategies. The letter has been signed by executives from more than 30 companies, from multinationals to smaller vendors that combined span the entire hydrogen mobility ecosystem. It calls for immediate and targeted policy support to unlock investment and scale deployment of hydrogen vehicles and infrastructure across the EU. CEOs point to three critical issues: Hydrogen mobility is a strategic imperative: Complementing battery-electric vehicles, hydrogen technologies are vital to ensuring a diversified, resilient, and cost effective decarbonisation of road transport. A combined approach could save Europe between 300-500 billion euros in infrastructure costs by 2050. Two mobility infrastructures will be cheaper for Europe than relying on just electrification. Hydrogen mobility is a vector for jobs and industrial growth: Europe’s existing industrial strengths in automotive and advanced manufacturing can be leveraged to lead in hydrogen technology, providing up to 500,000 jobs by 2030. Hydrogen mobility unlocks critical energy system synergies: Hydrogen enables demand aggregation, supports hard-to-abate sectors, and drastically reduces renewable energy waste. Despite progress, the CEOs warn that hydrogen mobility in Europe will stagnate unless a more coordinated and pragmatic policy framework is implemented to support the rollout of the necessary infrastructure and achieve the scale needed for the hydrogen mobility market to flourish. For this to happen, hydrogen mobility must form a central element of strategic initiatives such as the Sustainable Transport Investment Plan and Clean Industrial Deal, while the ongoing push to simplify EU regulations can help drive down the cost and complexity of building hydrogen mobility infrastructure. A Call to Action: A Call to Action: GHMA_CEO-Letter__EU_FINAL Accelerate Hydrogen Mobility for Europe’s Sustainable, Competitive and Resilient Industrial Future.Letter for Ursula von der Leyen

The newly published Clean Industrial Deal State Aid Framework (CISAF) reflects industry’s call for coherence and will contribute to ensuring the Clean Industrial Deal (CID) does not become an empty promise. The text commendably targets increased flexibility, broad thresholds, generous cumulation, priority for renewables, recognition for electricity produced from renewable fuels of non-biological origin (RFNBOs), with flexibility on low-carbon hydrogen too. There is also a concerted alignment with the Net-Zero Industry Act (NZIA) to ensure that system and supply-chain resilience are prioritised, bringing additional coherence. Jorgo Chatzimarkakis, Hydrogen Europe’s CEO, stated: “DG COMP has sent a strong signal that Europe is serious about investment in clean tech and is ready to take its seat as a global energy transition leader. Higher aid ceilings for hydrogen production and use, flexible funding schemes, and accelerated depreciation together will help unlock the next wave of hydrogen projects and keep manufacturing capacity in Europe. It is essential that the Commission dedicates new financial resources for the sector to make this happen.” The new framework simplifies and enhances current provisions: Aid ceilings rise to 100% of eligible costs for RFNBO production via competitive bidding and to 60% for industrial hydrogen use when at least 40% per cent of the mix is renewable. Introduction of first RFNBO quotas. Accelerated depreciation will help end-users book hydrogen equipment quickly, whilst Member States can match foreign subsidies for strategic factories. Cumulation rules will allow CISAF to stack with the Innovation Fund, Important Projects of Common European Interest (IPCEI), Connecting Europe Facility (CEF), and other instruments. Now, the entire hydrogen value chain, from electrolysers and storage to hydrogen-ready DRI reactors, is in scope. It is crucial that all uncertainties around permissible state aid are lifted to ensure the new rules can efficiently make clean-tech manufacturing and energy-intensive industries competitive and sustainable. The Commission must now think long-term and align state aid with investment horizons: CISAF expires in 2030, well before most hydrogen assets reach mid-life. With no new EU-level cash and diverging national budgets, CISAF risks becoming a blunt instrument. Red tape must also be cut, especially for large projects which face extra administrative steps when they trigger funding-gap notifications. These measures will ensure the final CISAF becomes the catalyst Europe needs to build a resilient and competitive hydrogen economy. For more info: European Commission’s press release: New State aid framework enables support for clean industry Hydrogen Europe’s reply to CISAF public consultation Hydrogen Europe members can access further analysis in HE’s Members Only Area (MOA) 

Today, the Commission announced the selection of 15 renewable hydrogen production projects for public funding across the European Economic Area (EEA). The projects, located across five countries, are expected to produce nearly 2.2 million tonnes of renewable hydrogen over ten years, avoiding more than 15 million tonnes of CO₂ emissions. The hydrogen will be produced in sectors such as transportation, the chemical industry, or the production of methanol and ammonia. They will receive a total of €992 million in EU funding, from the Innovation Fund sourced from the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS). The winning bidders, awarded after the second European Hydrogen Bank (EHB) auction, will produce the renewable hydrogen in Europe with a subsidy that will help to close the price difference between their production costs and the market price and accelerate the deployment of cleaner fuels. The auctions of the European Hydrogen Bank contribute to scaling up renewable hydrogen, which in turn will help replace natural gas, coal and oil in hard-to-decarbonise industries and transport sectors. Producing more renewable hydrogen will decrease the use of fossil fuels on our continent and increase the EU’s energy independence and positively impact security, jobs and the decarbonisation of European industry. Of the selected projects, 12 are committed to producing renewable hydrogen with fixed premium support between €0.20 and €0.60 per kilogramme. For the first time, the auction provided a dedicated budget for hydrogen producers with off-takers in the maritime sector, which are entities using the hydrogen produced by the project for carrying out or making use of bunkering activities. This has resulted in the selection of three bids receiving €96.7 million in grants. These projects will require between €0.45 and €1.88 per kilogramme. Each subsidy for the 15 projects ranges from €8 million and €246 million over a period up to 10 years. ** Calculated based on the 2021-2025 ETS benchmark of 6.84 tons CO2e/tH2, not taking into account additional carbon abatement due to substitution effects in the H2 end use application  In parallel, Spain, Lithuania, and Austria are allocating up to €836 million in national funding for projects in their countries through the ‘Auctions-as-a-Service’ feature. This allows Member States to identify and fund eligible projects in their territories that meet the auction’s qualification criteria but cannot be funded by the Innovation Fund due to budgetary limitations. ‘Auctions-as-a-service‘ is open to all Member States, enabling them to benefit from the EU-level auction platform and award national funding to additional projects with simplified procedure.  Next Steps The selected projects will now be invited to prepare their grant agreement with the European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency (CINEA). Agreements are expected to be signed by September/October 2025. Signed projects are required to reach financial close within a maximum of two and a half years after signature and to start producing renewable hydrogen within a period of 5 years. They will receive the fixed premium subsidy for a period of up to ten years for certified and verified renewable hydrogen production. As announced in the Clean Industrial Deal, a third European Hydrogen Bank auction is planned for end 2025 with a budget of up to €1 billion. The Commission will soon also launch the Hydrogen Mechanism under the European Hydrogen Bank. This online platform will bring together buyers and sellers and enable market participants to share information and find potential commercial partners. Background With an estimated total budget of €40 billion from the EU Emissions Trading System for the period from 2020 to 2030, the Innovation Fund creates financial incentives for companies and public authorities to invest in cutting-edge net-zero technologies and support Europe’s transition to climate neutrality.  The European Hydrogen Bank facilitates the EU’s domestic production and imports of renewable hydrogen that qualifies as Renewable Fuels of Non-Biological Origin (RFNBO), meaning it is generated using renewable electricity and meets the EU’s sustainability criteria.  It supports the EU target to produce 10 million tonnes of domestic renewable hydrogen by 2030, as set out in the REPowerEU plan. It aims to unlock private investment in the EU and in third countries by addressing investment challenges, closing the funding gap, and connecting future renewable hydrogen supply to consumers. In its first auction in 2023, the Innovation Fund awarded nearly €700 million in grants to support 6 projects.