The selected projects span seven countries in the European Economic Area, including Greece, Spain, Denmark, Austria, Finland, Germany and Norway, and are expected to deliver nearly 1.1 gigawatts of electrolyser capacity, producing over 1.3 million tonnes of renewable and low-carbon hydrogen over their first ten years of operation, with an estimated avoidance of 9 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent. Funding, drawn from the Innovation Fund and financed through the EU Emissions Trading System, is paid as a fixed premium per kilogram of certified hydrogen produced, ranging from €0.44 to €3.49, structured to bridge the gap between production costs and current market prices for hydrogen buyers.

Germany and Spain are contributing a further €1.7 billion in national funds through the Auctions-as-a-Service mechanism, which allows Member States to top up EU funding and potentially extend support to additional projects from the reserve list that did not receive EU funding directly, an approach that could bring more capacity online than the headline EU figure alone suggests. Grant agreements are expected to be signed with the European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency by the fourth quarter of 2026, with selected projects required to reach financial close within two and a half years and begin operations within five years, timelines that will determine how quickly this new supply becomes available to industrial offtakers.

Coming on the heels of a successful first supply-and-demand matching round earlier in 2026, this infrastructure-adjacent auction result adds a further layer of concrete production capacity to the pipeline that chemical producers and other energy-intensive industries can draw on as they plan their own transition away from fossil-based hydrogen and grey ammonia production.

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