The European Commission has selected nine renewable hydrogen projects to share around €1.09 billion in funding through the third auction of the European Hydrogen Bank, with Spain’s T2X among the winners.
The auction-based scheme, run under the EU’s Innovation Fund, attracted 58 bids from 11 countries, requesting around €8.4 billion in support against a budget of €1.3 billion, according to the EC.
The selected projects span seven countries in the European Economic Area and were awarded fixed premiums ranging from €0.44 to €3.49 per kilogramme of certified renewable hydrogen produced.
The Spanish project T2X, run by Turn2X Asset Co II Extremadura, will install 9MW of electrolysis capacity and is expected to deliver around 6,390 tonnes of renewable hydrogen during its first ten years of operation.
It will receive €0.62 per kilogramme of certified hydrogen produced under the subsidy scheme, which is designed to bridge the gap between current production costs and the market price of clean hydrogen.
In total, the nine selected projects are expected to deploy close to 1.1 gigawatts of electrolysis capacity and produce more than 1.3 million tonnes of renewable hydrogen over the next decade, the European Commission said. According to Brussels, this would help avoid around 9 million tonnes of CO2-equivalent emissions.
The €1.09 billion in EU support has been drawn from the EU Innovation Fund, which is financed through revenues raised by the bloc’s Emissions Trading System (ETS).
Beyond the direct grants, Spain has pledged an additional €440 million in national money to back renewable hydrogen projects that took part in the auction and met Brussels’ technical thresholds, though did not secure EU funds.
Germany is also taking part in the joint mechanism through the so-called “auctions-as-a-service” scheme, mobilising up to €1.3 billion in further national support for projects on its territory. Together, the two member states will add roughly €1.7 billion to the European subsidy pot.
The European Hydrogen Bank, launched by the EC in 2023, is one of the EU’s flagship instruments for scaling up domestic production of renewable hydrogen and reducing the bloc’s dependence on imported fossil fuels.
It forms part of the wider EU Green Deal and the REPowerEU plan, which the bloc adopted in response to the energy shock triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Brussels has set a target of producing 10 million tonnes of renewable hydrogen domestically by 2030 and importing a further 10 million tonnes, with the technology positioned as central to decarbonising hard-to-abate sectors such as steel, chemicals and heavy transport.
Grant agreements with the selected projects are expected to be signed by the end of 2026, with developers required to reach a final investment decision within two and a half years and start operating within five years of signature.
