Created in correlation with the European Commission’s REPowerEU, the Lighthouse initiative has identified several key projects across the EU that could enhance the hydrogen ecosystem on the continent.

Hosting the event and unveiling the new project, Jorgo Chatzimarkakis, CEO of Hydrogen Europe, explained, “The big rationale is to accelerate the deployment of Integrated Projects and you will see some examples today that are the main tool to overcome chicken and egg.

“We need to remove barriers and unleash the potential. And still, there are a lot of barriers not to talk about the delegated act on additionality, which is not just helping additionality, but it’s killing investments into electrolysis.

“We need to connect people and companies. That is what we want to do here, and we need to learn from past mistakes and best practises because there have been, of course, mistakes.

But how will this impact the role that the lighthouse project has and what is its primary objective? Chatzimarkakis told the event, “What we are going to do with this lighthouse is to create a one stop shop for the European open market and beyond.”

In doing so the, Hydrogen Europe is simplifying the creation of large-scale hydrogen production projects and creating an extensive network to enrich the hydrogen economy.

With this, several projects have already been inducted into the initiative and will receive support such as being connected to the Europe Hydrogen Backbone initially set for 2030.

These first lighthouse projects include: HyDeal Espana, White Dragon, Green Falcon, HySynergy, bLion.

Chatzimarkakis said, “There are already 54 identified lighthouse areas. We also have potential projects because we need to talk also about additional projects and how to connect them. Here the LNG terminals and the possibility to transport to ship now is its LNG.

“Later on, these will be repurposed LNG hubs that will receive liquid hydrogen. They will need to be connected to the existing backbone initiative.”