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The information and views set out in this report are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official opinion of the FCH 2 JU. The FCH 2 JU does not guarantee the accuracy of the data included in this study. Neither the FCH 2 JU nor any person acting on the FCH 2 JU's behalf may be held responsible for the use which may be made of the information contained therein.

Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union, 2021

? FCH 2 JU, 2021

Reuse is authorised provided the source is acknowledged. The reuse policy of European Commission documents is regulated by Decision 2011/833/EU (OJ L 330, 14.12.2011, p. 39). For any use or reproduction of photos or other material that is not under the copyright of FCH 2 JU, permission must be sought directly from the copyright holders. The FCH 2 JU does not own the copyright in relation to the following illustrations: pages 7-11, 13-18:

Project Number: 2021.4752

Title: Project Development Assistance for Cities and Regions

Linguistic version

Catalogue number

ISBN

PDF

EG-03-21-385-EN-N

978-92-9246-379-3

DOI 10.2843/840196

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Contents

1 Foreword from the Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking ................................................. 4 2 Introduction................................................................................................................................. 5 3 Work completed through PDA .................................................................................................... 6 4 Work undertaken in each region................................................................................................. 7

4.1 Asturias .................................................................................................................................. 7 4.2 Bourgogne-Franche-Comte ................................................................................................... 8 4.3 Gdansk, Gdynia, Tczew, Wejherowo ..................................................................................... 9 4.4 Limburg ................................................................................................................................ 10 4.5 Mariestad............................................................................................................................. 11 4.6 M?dio Tejo ........................................................................................................................... 13 4.7 Mocenok .............................................................................................................................. 14 4.8 Ruse ..................................................................................................................................... 15 4.9 Sofia ..................................................................................................................................... 16 4.10 Texel..................................................................................................................................... 17 4.11 Zagreb .................................................................................................................................. 18 5 Observer Network activities ...................................................................................................... 19 6 Lessons learnt through the delivery of PDA support ................................................................ 21 6.1 Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 21 6.2 Structuring PDA support ...................................................................................................... 21 6.3 Delivering PDA support........................................................................................................ 22 6.4 Delivering PDA support to EU13 countries .......................................................................... 24 6.5 Ensuring project delivery following PDA support ................................................................ 25 6.6 Conclusions on lessons learnt.............................................................................................. 27 7 Next steps.................................................................................................................................. 28 8 Conclusions................................................................................................................................ 29

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1 Foreword from the Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking

Continuing FCH JU's long-term cooperation with regions, one of our flagship initiatives, the Project Development Assistance, had as objectives to stimulate the interest of various regions and cities towards hydrogen technologies and ultimately to help them develop and put in practice sound plans and projects around these technologies. We wanted to show how important it is to have a comprehensive, unitary approach, which brings the right stakeholders around the right funding and how this can be done taking into account the specific context of each region or city.

Since launching the call for applications in 2020, we have received 35 applications for Project Development Assistance (PDA) from regions across 18 European countries, including from areas with low deployment of hydrogen technologies, such as Central and Eastern Europe. 11 European regions were selected to benefit from direct assistance for developing high quality, integrated hydrogen projects.

But we didn't want to stop there, we envisaged creating a ripple effect. The wide geographic spread and the diverse portfolio of the end-use applications in the regions selected create a great blueprint for the other regions, which were included in the PDA Observers' Network. All of them were able to benefit from the shared knowledge and expertise.

While funding for the projects we assisted is experiencing the typical uncertainty of the transition between Multi-annual Financial Frameworks, and considering the Letters of Intent/Commitment received by the regions, their actual implementation could benefit from a supportive grant-based funding framework. Some examples are: the Recovery and Resilience Facility, the Just Transition Fund or the Innovation Fund for small and large projects.

The 11 PDAs have very concrete plans and may materialise into an overall capital expenditure (CAPEX) totalling between EUR 650 million and EUR 750 million. In addition, this pipeline of candidates to Hydrogen Valleys comes with an average CAPEX of above EUR 50 million, which is considered the threshold for attracting International Financial Institutions, paving the way for reaching an efficient funding and financing combination. The size of the investments in the pipeline put the leverage effect of this pilot PDA procurement at between an impressive x875 and x1015 should all the projects be implemented as planned.

Adding to the success of this pilot are the many outcomes that weren't initially foreseen but yet materialised in value added for these and any other region wishing to pursue the Hydrogen avenue. Among those it is worth mentioning (1) the Policy White Paper which consultancies compiled for Mocenok and ended up helping all regions understand and navigate the policy landscape for hydrogen1; (2) the template for Requests for Information (RFI), prepared for Zagreb but further used by other PDAs whenever regions were ready to proceed to enquiring with equipment suppliers about the availability, performance, and cost of equipment required by the project; and (3) the FCH-Regions' Hub2, which we developed to concentrate the relevant information gathered within the FCH JU projects, studies and initiatives, linking regions to specific external sources and complementary initiatives capable of assisting them in the endeavour of deploying regional FCH plans.

This pilot PDA for Hydrogen in regions sets the path for further such initiatives, possibly targeting regions which are not yet involved in the development of hydrogen projects and which could make use of the encompassing advantages of hydrogen as a green energy carrier to ensure local, sustainable and integrated energy solutions.

We would like to encourage all interested regions to get in touch and see how we can help them put in practice their decarbonisation goals with the help of hydrogen projects.

1 Available at 2

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2 Introduction

The Project Development Assistance for Cities and Regions (PDA) programme launched a call for expressions of interest (EOI) on January 16th, 2020, open to all European cities and regions with an existing concept for a hydrogen and fuel cell deployment project. The aim of the programme was to provide support for at least ten regions or cities to develop detailed work plans for the implementation of hydrogen projects, including at least two projects from the 13 Member States that joined the EU later (EU13)3. This support was to be provided in the form of dedicated time from a consultant and manager with expertise in developing innovative hydrogen and fuel cell technology deployment projects. By the close of the call for EOI, thirty-six EOI were received from regions across eighteen European countries, including thirteen EOI from EU13 Member States. Eleven of the projects that submitted an EOI were selected to receive funded consultancy support over the period June 2020 ? June 2021. Regions that applied for PDA but were not selected to receive direct PDA support were invited to take part in an Observer Network, which provided a series of interactive web-seminars to support the development of regional hydrogen projects.

This public summary report contains summaries of the project plans and work undertaken in each of the selected regions, the activities delivered as part of the observer network, and the expected next steps following the close of the PDA support period.

3 In May 2004, 10 countries joined the EU15: Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovenia and Slovakia. On 1 January 2007, Bulgaria and Romania became members of the EU. The latest country to accede was Croatia, on 1 July 2013.

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3 Work completed through PDA

Over the period June 2020 to June 2021, consultancies worked to provide direct project development support to the eleven selected regions. While the consultancies involved in delivering PDA worked collaboratively throughout the duration of the programme to share best practices and discuss approaches to common challenges, each region was assigned a consultancy, with a dedicated project manager and consultant to provide support. Certain regions in EU13 countries were assigned a second consultancy with specific knowledge of developing hydrogen projects in central and eastern Europe.

In addition to the region-specific support delivered in each region, the consultancies also developed several common documents that could be used as a basis for project development in a number of regions. These documents comprised:

- Policy paper: as part of the work completed in Mocenok, the consultancies compiled a policy white paper to help regions understand and navigate the policy landscape for hydrogen. The paper provides an outline of the legislative environment today and the role hydrogen can play in this framework. It also reviews ambitious policies in place, or under discussion, which provide support for hydrogen production or consumption. This is used to highlight possible area of expansion for hydrogen policy across Member States. The document also outlines some of the key options for intervention in the hydrogen sector going forward based on policy research and pilot activities. This paper will be published on the FCH Regions Hub.

- Request for information (RFI) template: several of the regions were at a sufficient level of maturity that they were ready to proceed to enquiring with equipment suppliers about the availability, performance, and cost of equipment required by the project. As part of the support provided to key stakeholders in Zagreb, Element Energy supported the development of RFI templates that were subsequently used to enquire about the availability of articulated fuel cell buses, and (separately) of hydrogen infrastructure. This template was adapted for the case of Gdynia and used to request information for solo buses and articulated buses. Key takeaways from this exercise were:

o RFIs can be used in regions that are looking for specific technical and cost data, ahead of procurement procedures for a commercially available piece of equipment.

o For more niche equipment requests (e.g. ship retrofitting, articulated buses), where less companies would be able to fill the request, engaging directly with the suppliers was found to work better as standard offering aren't available and fewer companies are willing or able to respond to an RFI.

The FCH JU will maintain the RFI templates for vehicles and infrastructure and use them as a basis to support regions seeking to find further information about the technical specifications, costs, and availability of different hydrogen and fuel cell technologies.

Summaries of work completed in each of the selected regions is provided in Section 4.

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4 Work undertaken in each region

The following section details the work undertaken by the consultancy team to develop the concepts for hydrogen projects in the selected regions into detailed work plans.

4.1 Asturias

The Asturias project aims to develop a full ecosystem of hydrogen production, transport, distribution and use of hydrogen in several sectors. Several initiatives are part of this ecosystem. The first initiative will build 45 MW of electrolyser capacity in the coal mining valleys in the centre and south of Asturias ("Cuencas Mineras asturianas"), to supply a fleet of public transport vehicles, and for injection in the gas distribution grid. The second initiative will build two green hydrogen production facilities in the centre of Asturias. One will supply a hydrogen refuelling station for heavy vehicles, and the other will be used to test the injection of hydrogen in a combined cycle turbine, to prepare for the future increase of hydrogen concentration in the gas grid. The third initiative is the installation in two phases of 200 MW of onshore electrolyser capacity and 5 MW of offshore electrolyser capacity, connected to a new 100 MW onshore wind farm and a 250 MW offshore wind farm off the coast of Asturias. Hydrogen will be used for local industries (steel manufacturing, shipyards), injection in the gas grid, transport, and export to other European countries. The Region of Asturias and the local energy agency FAEN have been coordinating the ReCoDe initiative during the PDA programme, which aims to facilitate synergies in the overall Asturian hydrogen ecosystem. This will contribute to the energy transition of the region, and to the development of new manufacturing industries in the hydrogen sector. Overall, support from the Project Development Assistance programme has helped the partners involved in the ecosystem to build the component parts of a complete hydrogen ecosystem in Asturias from hydrogen production to end uses. Consultancy support has initiated collaboration with the stakeholders involved in the future hydrogen value chain. Advice and detailed information on technical aspects of some components of the projects have been provided. This has included the provision of information on best practices and key learnings observed in other European city and regional hydrogen mobility projects. Discussions with key equipment suppliers were also initiated to refine the technical specifications of the project. Information about relevant European funding calls has also been shared with the partners, along with analysis of the recommended funding opportunities based on the economic and technical characteristics of the project. For the final output, the consultants have written a project specification report, presenting the detailed characteristics of the full Asturian ecosystem that has been supported: regional and national energy and hydrogen context, technical specifications of the infrastructure and the vehicle, estimated budget, location of the deployments in Asturias, cost and funding strategy, and implementation strategy. The report will be a key asset for the Region of Asturias, the FAEN and

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the partners for future funding applications. For the Region of Asturias and FAEN, this is also essential for their ongoing coordination work of the ReCoDe initiative, which aims to attract more stakeholders in Asturias to develop activities related to green hydrogen, and to eventually have an operating large-scale network of electrolysers by 2030.

4.2 Bourgogne-Franche-Comte

The Bourgogne-Franche-Comt? Region (BFC Region) has the ambition to become a positive energy territory by 2050. Hydrogen is one of the pillars of this objective, with the BFC Region adopting a regional hydrogen roadmap at the end of 2019. This roadmap commits EUR 90 million to the hydrogen sector, including EUR 18 million for the mobility sector and EUR 52 million for the purchase of 3 hydrogen trains. A number of key projects are emerging in the BFC region, with most notably several hydrogen ecosystems gathering different mobility applications, and occasionally industry or stationary applications. However, to date these projects have tended to have been developed at local level without overarching co-ordination from the regional government. The ambition of the BFC Region is to coordinate, and create links between, these projects and deployments at a regional level, with the objective to group these projects in a single regional project and secure funding for its development. PDA support initially focused on defining the scope of a coordinated regional project from a number of separate concepts for hydrogen projects in the region. An interview conducted with the project leaders led to the development of an integrated regional project concept gathering the deployment of 101 to 105 heavy vehicles, between 2022 and 2026. These heavy vehicles are 65 fuel cell buses and 36 to 40 fuel cell refuse trucks. These deployments are distributed between 7 cities. Several additional deployments have already been funded, benefitting from regional, national and European sources. The vehicles deployed will decrease CO2 emissions, by avoiding the emission of about 6,200 tons of greenhouse gases (GHG) per year, and will improve local air quality, by avoiding the emission of 53 tons of NOx and 1.7 tons of particulate matter (PM) per year. In a second phase, PDA support focused on the means to materialise the regional project, providing information on best practices and key learning observed in similar European projects, and on current and future European funding opportunities. The consultancy worked with the region to support the analysis of the technical and financial feasibility of the project, and develop detailed plans for implementation. A final report summarising the project, describing the technical and financial characteristics of the regional deployment, has been delivered to the BFC Region. This report presents the regional and national energy and hydrogen context, the technical specifications of the different infrastructures and vehicles, an estimated budget

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