French government pledges further €1.9bn for hydrogen

LONDON (ICIS)–French president Emmanuel Macron announced on Tuesday that France will provide an additional €1.9 billion in funds to support the development of zero carbon and green hydrogen production.

The new spending announcement brings total national support to around €9 billion when combine with funds announced in the French hydrogen strategy by 2030.

The allocation for hydrogen will come from the €30bn France 2030 package.

When the package was first announced on 12 October, Macron also stated that France would build “at least” two gigawatt-scale electrolyser production factories, as well as a small modular reactor (SMR) for nuclear power generation.

According to information from the French government, all of the €8.9bn will be used for the production of green hydrogen. However, if nuclear hydrogen is the focus of France then this hydrogen would be known as zero carbon or “pink” hydrogen.

The announcement of the additional €1.9 billion funds for green hydrogen was made by Macron during a visit at French electrolyser and fuel cell technologies producer Genvia in Beziers. The clean hydrogen technology venture, which according to the government is one of the groups which better “embodies” the ambition of the France 2030 plan, is also going to benefit from €200 million of funds for its research on hydrogen technologies.

“With #France2030 we are going to invest nearly €2 billion to develop green hydrogen. It is a battle for the environment, for jobs, for the sovereignty of our country that we are going to wage” Macron tweeted after the visit.

The France 2030 plan aims to decarbonise France’s industrial recovery and turn the country into a leader in green hydrogen production by 2030.

Before that, in September 2020, the French hydrogen policy plan outlined 6.5GW of installed electrolysis production capacity by 2030, the highest pledge of EU nations to date.