Poland will be the biggest recipient with €77.2m awarded to two developers building a total of 21 new HRSs — a major move in a country that has no hydrogen filling stations up and running, although 13 are currently being developed.
Grants were also made for eight new HRSs in France, five in Spain, four in Finland, three in Denmark and one each in Greece and Slovenia (see table below for details).
The funding was awarded by the European Commission’s Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency (Cinea) using cash from the Alternative Fuels Infrastructure Facility (AFIF) of the EU’s Connecting Europe Facility (CEF), the funding programme that supports European transport infrastructure.
At the same time, Cinea awarded a further €309m for the roll-out of about 4,200 electric recharging points, while some of the H2 funding will be used to build electrolysers to supply the fuel.
“Since 2021, the EU has granted over €1.3bn through AFIF to several projects, deploying 26,396 electric recharging points, 202 hydrogen refuelling stations, and electrifying ground operations in 63 airports,” said EU transport commissioner Adina V?lean.
“This last call [for proposals, which ended in November] was the most successful regarding the projects' number and quality so far, showing the growing interest in hydrogen and electric charging infrastructure.”
Cinea director Paloma Aba Garrote added: “With this new selection, the European Union is showing that a transition to zero-emission transport through alternative fuels is not a dream for the future, but something that is happening now across the EU.”
The grant winners were as follows:
| No. of HRSs | Country | Project name | Lead developer | Eligible costs (€) | Recommended CEF funding (€) | Details |
| 16 | Poland | Clean Cities | Orlen | 124.6m | 62.3m | 16 HRSs in Gdańsk, Rzeszów, Cz?stochowa, Wroc?aw I, ?ód?, Gliwice, Kraków, Lublin, ??ka, Poznań, Prze?mierowo, Szczecin, Wroc?aw, Gdynia, Koszwa?y, Zielona Góra and a 5MW electrolyser in Szczecin. |
| 5 | Poland | Unnamed | PAK-PCE Stacje H2 | 29.8m | 14.9m | Five HRSs in Szczecin, Gliwice, Cz?stochowa, ?ód? and Katowice, plus one electrolyser. |
| 7 | Finland/Denmark | NoRdic GreEn HydroGen Corridor ConnEcting Arctics to EuRope [sic] | Vireon | 30.6m | 9.2m | Four HRSs in Finland and three in Denmark, plus one electrolyser. No further details available. |
| 5 | Spain | Inspira Madrid | FRV-X Renewable | 24.6m | 7.4m | Five HRSs and one 'hydrogen production plant' in Madrid. |
| 3 | France | GreenH2forAll | Thevenin Ducrot Distribution | 16.2m | 4.9m | Three HRSs in Bussy St Georges, Montmarault and Brignoles, and one electrolyser. |
| 3 | France | Hysaec Newton | Hympulsion | 13m | 3.9m | Three HRSs in Reyrieux, Modane and Saint-Etienne. |
| 1 | France | Unnamed | Lhymo | 7.3m | 1.2m | One HRS in Limoges with a 1MW electrolyser. |
| 1 | France | Unnamed | H2 Metz | 11.4m | 3.4m | One HRS for heavy-duty vehicles, plus an electrolyser producing 800kg of green H2 daily in Metz. |
| 1 | Greece | Unnamed | Avin Oil | 7.2m | 3.6m | One HRS for buses in Athens. |
| 1 | Slovenia | Green Energy for Transport | Energetika Ljubljana | 6m | 3m | One HRS for buses in Ljubljana, but funding also includes 42 EV recharging stations in Ljubljana and Koper, plus nine electric port service vehicles. |
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Cinea has stated that the number of hydrogen filling stations awarded funding in this round is 48, but the list of projects it provided show only 43.
A new AFIF call for applications is currently open, with an initial submission deadline of 24 September 2024.
The EU’s Alternative Fuels Infrastructure Regulation requires member states to ensure that H2 refuelling stations are built in 424 major urban areas across the EU and every 200km along the core European road network by 2030.(Copyright)
