Small-scale Hydrogen Valley

Expected Outcome:Hydrogen Valleys are hydrogen ecosystems that cover a specific geography ranging from local or regional focus (e.g. industrial cluster, ports, airports, etc.) to specific national or international regions (e.g. cross border hydrogen corridors)[1]. Hydrogen Valleys showcase the versatility of hydrogen by supplying several sectors in their geography such as mobility, industry and energy end uses. They are ecosystems or clusters where various final applications share a common hydrogen supply infrastructure. Across their geographic scope, Hydrogen Valleys cover multiple steps in the hydrogen value chain, ranging from hydrogen production (and often even dedicated renewables production) to the subsequent storage of hydrogen and distribution to off-takers via various modes of transport. Whilst most of the projects are in the EU, over the past years, Hydrogen Valleys have gone global, with new projects emerging worldwide. Mission Innovation has set a target of deploying 100 large-scale Hydrogen Valleys worldwide by 2030[2].Hydrogen Valleys are starting to form the first regional "hydrogen economies”. Already under the previous programme, the Clean Hydrogen Partnership provided support to several Hydrogen Valleys across different locations in EU and of different sizes. It is however necessary to continue the accelerated deployment of Hydrogen Valleys as required by RePowerEU (with a target to double the number of hydrogen valleys by 2025 and an inspirational target to have at least 50 Hydrogen Valleys under construction or operational by 2030 across the entire EU[3]) and to contribute to the objectives of the European Hydrogen Strategy, the EU Green Deal, and Fit for 55, and finally overcome common challenges linked to storage and distribution that may be territory specific. To do this it is necessary to have ‘testbed’ projects to act as first real-life cases for piloting global hydrogen markets. These projects need to be expanded in scale to demonstrate the