H2Market

Strand 1 project, 37 partners

Objectives

The main objective of Hy2Market is to realise a more mature interregional and international hydrogen value chain across Europe through: 

1. Preventing market failure by connecting supply and demand across regions (interregional collaboration of local initiatives) and accelerating the commercialization and scale-up phases (TRL 6-9) of green hydrogen solutions 
2. Joint investment in different parts of the hydrogen value chain by SMEs across European regions, together with bigger companies, researchers and regional organisations.; 
3. Intensive and structural knowledge exchange on all parts of the hydrogen ecosystem amongst EU regions and regional cooperation on overcoming H2-related regulatory and other barriers hurdles. 

 Value chain

Business cases and demonstrations activities in different regions: 

1. Production of hydrogen from RES and waste - green hydrogen pilot plants installed  
2. Transport, blending and storage of hydrogen – demonstrating pipeline  
3. Use of hydrogen to decarbonise carbon intensive industries in 7 industry sectors; 
4. Hydrogen for mobility – fuel, refiling stations, city buses and long-range transport. 

Biggest investment is in Waste-to-Hydrogen facility in Aragon with nearly 2 million EUR. 

Exploitation and further scaling up

Within the Hy2Market project, there are several participating regions and demonstration pilots in which the partners are implementing hydrogen projects into the market. These hydrogen developments are occurring in a fast-changing environment where every region faces similar challenges, i.e., permitting and skills development, and creating supply and demand. By working together, the participating regions are able to accelerate the learning process in order to speed up implementation in their regions. Next to the learnings in real pilots, efforts are pursued in developing deployment plans to further scale up. 

Statement of the Coordinator:

While creating a hydrogen value chain within Europe there are numerous challenges to overcome such as supply, demand, permitting, workforce, and logistics. With the Hy2Market project, we are able to create innovations in the entire hydrogen value chain and create synergies to overcome these challenges. We do this by getting real pilot demonstrations off the ground where we produce, integrate, transport, and use hydrogen in mobility and industrial applications. We believe that sharing this knowledge can help foster a faster acceptance of green hydrogen solutions in the value chains across the regions in Europe 

Project trajectory: A short statement on how they emerged and plans on replication and further upscaling - this we have to use for Managing Authorities to involve them in further support. 

We greatly benefited from the S3 platform on hydrogen. Across Europe, every region is looking for ways to use hydrogen to make the energy transition happen. In this project, we could already engage several regions from the S3 platform to replicate hydrogen plans and upscaling from more developed regions to emerging regions. 

Impact on regional ecosystems

The impact of the Hy2Marrket project on regional ecosystems is directly influenced by the investments into hydrogen technologies, and cleaner transportation and industrial use. Per region, several companies work together enhancing the regional ecosystem by bringing greener and more sustainable energy solutions as well as increasing capacity by investing in their own future and region with a green solution. 

Impact on less developed regions 

Athanasia Ioannidou & Ioanna A. Mikrouli  (Bioeconomy & Environment Cluster of Western Macedonia )

The Hy2Market project is of great importance for our region (Western Macedonia, Greece) because WM is moving away from lignite coal towards a renewable energy-based economy, with hydrogen playing a key role. Furthermore, through the project, we will have the opportunity to evaluate the potential for replication of the demonstration sites in our region, in order to develop a robust hydrogen ecosystem in Western Macedonia, and strengthen the regional economy. This is also vital for our collective ambitions, including the development of a thriving hydrogen valley.