Major European project supporting hydrogen technologies about to launch

Call for expressions of interest issued for IPCEI on hydrogen

20200708-altmaier-corona-krise-ist-chance-europas-transformation-zu-fuehrendem-markt-fuer-klimafreundliche-technologien-voranzutreiben
Water molecules © iStock/smirkdingo

Today, the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy and the Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure started a call for expressions of interest in funding for hydrogen technologies and systems. The call was published in the Federal Gazette. The two federal ministries, alongside the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety and the Länder, are planning to provide funding for integrated green hydrogen projects along the entire value chain, starting from its production, to hydrogen infrastructure, and to its use in the industrial and mobility sectors. All in all, several billion euros is to be made available from the Federal Government’s 2020 stimulus package and by the Länder. Companies are invited to upload their project abstracts by 19 February 2021.

Said Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy Peter Altmaier: “In Germany and Europe, we want to be world leaders on hydrogen technologies and launch a shared European project to give investments in this area the momentum required to achieve this. I’d like to call upon companies to decide to invest boldly in the future. Innovative hydrogen technologies will allow us to demonstrate that climate action and industrial policy are not mutually exclusive, but can be combined in a shared success story.”

Said Federal Transport Minister Andreas Scheuer: “We are rigorously implementing the National Hydrogen Strategy. For the first time ever, we are giving German companies an opportunity to work with European partners on cross-border hydrogen and fuel-cell technology projects. In this way, we are strengthening our capacity to innovate and our global competitiveness in these difficult times for business – and are creating new jobs in Germany.”

IPCEI procedures allow for public-sector funding at national level for certain projects that make an important contribution to the growth and competitiveness of the European industrial sector and to the strategic objectives of the European Union. The success of this targeted instrument of industrial policy has been demonstrated by the existing IPCEIs on battery cell production and microelectronics.

At the virtual official launch event that took place on 17 December 2020 under Germany’s Presidency of the Council of the EU, Federal Minister for Economic Affairs Peter Altmaier and 22 of his European counterparts or their deputies signed a ‘manifesto’ for the IPCEI on hydrogen technologies and systems. In this paper, the governments pledged to finance hydrogen projects in their countries and agreed on how they will jointly proceed in the future.

In launching the expressions of interest procedure, Germany is now taking its first step towards the creation of an IPCEI on hydrogen.

Source

BMWI, press release, 2021-01-14.

Supplier

Bundesministerium für Umwelt, Naturschutz und Nukleare Sicherheit (BMU)
Bundesministerium für Verkehr und Digitale Infrastruktur (BMVI)
Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft und Energie (BMWI)

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