European Commission partners with EIT InnoEnergy’s
European Green Hydrogen Acceleration Center to
accelerate and de-risk green hydrogen projects
In its REPowerEU Communication on 8 March 2022, the European Commission underlined the strategic importance of green hydrogen by doubling the EU’s green hydrogen production target previously set out in the European Hydrogen Strategy to over 10 million tons of domestic production.
Meeting this ambition depends on innovative hydrogen projects reaching commercial scale earlier and with bigger impact. In this context, the European Commission is partnering with EIT InnoEnergy’s European Green Hydrogen Acceleration Center.
Upon selection, projects will benefit from potential investments as well as targeted de-risking and accacceleration services provided by EIT InnoEnergy.
EIT InnoEnergy was set up in 2010 and co-funded by the EU to accelerate Europe’s energy transition. The European Green Hydrogen Acceleration Center (EGHAC) was founded in 2020 and is supported by Breakthrough Energy.
EGHAC creates industrial players by helping to de-risk and accelerate their green hydrogen (and derivatives) projects. EGHAC does this through early-stage investment and acceleration services delivered in collaboration with its ecosystem.
In addition, EGHAC supports green hydrogen projects by assessing their business case, performing a team assessment, and introducing them to a tailor-made advisory committee to accelerate and de-risk these projects. Key to EGHAC’s success is the value-chain approach; by bringing all stakeholders together, including offtakers,the risks and benefits can be shared so that the premium for a carbon-free produced end- product is kept to a minimum.
GET INFORMED AND START THE APPLICATION PROCESS
The European Commission and EIT InnoEnergy had an initial webinar on April 7th. The presentation will become available here soon.
The webinar will introduce EIT InnoEnergy’s European Green Hydrogen Acceleration Center and its support activities to project holders, the partnership put in place with the European Commission, the services offered and the project selection process. Promoters that have a projectin the European Clean Hydrogen Alliance pipeline can start the process by answering a questionnaire looking at basic project information and seven key criteria (e.g. colour of H2, SOP date, size etc.). The deadline for submitting the questionnaire is 21 April 2022.
The team at EIT InnoEnergy’s European Green Hydrogen Acceleration Center will assess the information and conduct due diligence on the selected projects. Validated projects will be admitted to the Business Investment Platform run by EGHAC. Selected projects will be eligible for possible investment and for detailed curation along key business dimensions (such asaccess to market, sales and growth, supply chain and industrialisation,value chain and project ecosystem, technology enhancement, governance strategy, regulation, access to human capital, access to finance).
