Argus – Largest European hydrogen bank funding winner pulls out
The winner of the European hydrogen bank’s largest subsidies will not take up the funding because the project cannot meet timelines set by the EU, one of its developers has told Argus.
Swedish utility Vattenfall and Danish investment fund Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners earlier this year won €246.6mn ($287mn) in the hydrogen bank’s second round, for their 500MW Zeevonk electrolysis project in the Netherlands.
Vattenfall, said:
But they had to decide to withdraw their application because of the requirement for projects to be operational and have a viable offtake market by 2030,
Meeting this deadline will not be possible because of delays to hydrogen pipelines planned as part of the Delta-Rhine Corridor (DRC) infrastructure project, to 2032 from 2028, Vattenfall said.
As the electrolysis plant depends on the DRC for hydrogen transport, the developers have pushed back its planned commissioning to 2032 from 2030. The Dutch government had said that, because of the delays, it amended the permit for the Zeevonk electrolysis plant and the offshore wind farm that is to provide it with power.
Vattenfall did not immediately respond to a request for comment on why the Zeevonk partners decided to submit a bid for hydrogen bank subsidies. The Dutch government first said in June 2024 that the DRC would probably be delayed to 2032 and confirmed in December that the pipelines would only be completed by 2031-32.
The bidding window for the hydrogen bank’s second auction opened on 3 December 2024 and closed on 20 February 2025.
The withdrawal means more than 25pc of the €992mn initially allocated through the second auction will not be taken up. Zeevonk had made the cut for subsidies as the last of 12 projects in the general round, which does not prescribe a specific offtake sector. It was successful with a bid of €0.60/kg, with which its planned 41,100 t/yr output would have been supported over the 10-year subsidy period.
The European Commission was not immediately available to comment on what would happen with the rescinded funds, or if they might be added to an upcoming third hydrogen bank round.
By Stefan Krumpelmann
READ the latest news shaping the hydrogen market at Hydrogen Central
Argus – Largest European hydrogen bank funding winner pulls out, source
