Clean Hydrogen JOINT UNDERTAKING

The Clean Hydrogen JU will contribute to the European climate neutrality goal by producing noticeable, quantifiable results towards the development and scaling up of hydrogen production, storage, distribution and end use applications. This will help develop a number of hydrogen technologies, which are currently either not competitive or have a low technology readiness level but are expected to contribute to the 2030 energy and climate targets and most importantly make possible climate neutrality by 2050. The research and innovation activities of the Clean Hydrogen JU will address areas related primarily to the production of clean hydrogen, as well as the distribution, storage and end use applications of clean hydrogen in hard to abate sectors. They will be guided mostly by EU’s Hydrogen Strategy3 and the policy developments in this context such as the European Green Deal4 and REPowerEU5 , contributing to its implementation. The Clean Hydrogen JU will aim to accelerate the development and deployment of the European value chain for safe and sustainable clean hydrogen technologies, strengthening its competitiveness and with a view to supporting notably small and medium enterprises (SMEs), accelerating the market entry of innovative competitive clean solutions. The final goal is to contribute to a sustainable, decarbonised and fully integrated EU energy system, and to the EU’s Hydrogen Strategy, playing an important role in the implementation of its roadmap towards climate neutrality. To this end, cross-cutting aspects such as safety, circularity and sustainability will be embedded continuously throughout the entire Clean Hydrogen JU Programme, guiding and underpinning the activities undertaken within. Concerning circularity and sustainability aspects, in particular, it is foreseen that activities will not only address these aspects as part of the “post-development” assessment, but also for orientating and/or while looking for solutions and/or taking decisions (e.g. materials selection) to develop a product, technology and/or a value chain in a more sustainable and circular manner. In this sense, “Safety and circularity by design” will become essential aspects across the Clean Hydrogen JU Programme