The European Commission has approved a €1.3 billion German state aid scheme to support the production of renewable hydrogen.
The funding will be channelled through the European Hydrogen Bank’s “Auctions-as-a-Service” tool and linked to an auction that closed in 2026, the Commission informed on Wednesday.
Germany’s scheme is expected to support construction of up to 1,000 megawatts of installed electrolyser capacity — equipment that uses electricity to split water into hydrogen — and the production of up to 10 million tonnes of renewable hydrogen.
The Commission estimated this could avoid up to 55 million tonnes of CO₂.
Aid will be awarded via a competitive bidding process supervised by the European Climate, Infrastructure, and Environment Executive Agency (CINEA).
Projects backed under the scheme must feed renewable hydrogen into the Danish Hydrogen Backbone 1 pipeline and deliver it to buyers connected to the German Hydrogen Core Network.
How the support will work
Support will take the form of a direct grant per kilogram of renewable hydrogen produced, and can be paid for up to 10 years, the Commission said.
Beneficiaries will have to meet EU criteria for “renewable fuels of non-biological origin” (RFNBOs) — a category that includes renewable hydrogen produced using renewable electricity.
“This investment in renewable hydrogen production is a step towards Europe’s decarbonisation goals,” said Teresa Ribera, the Commission’s executive vice-president for clean, just and competitive transition.
