The announcement of the Industrial Decarbonisation Bank offers potential for excellent complementarity with the European Hydrogen Bank. Renewing the latter and designing the former to crowd in all clean technologies will unlock large gains in the hydrogen sector.
On 7 May 2026, the results from the third edition of the European Hydrogen Bank (EHB) were published. A total of €1.09 billion was allocated across nine projects with a combined electrolyser capacity of 1.1GW.
Over the first ten years of their lifespan, these projects will see the production of 1.3 million tonnes (Mt) of RFNBO and low-carbon electrolytic hydrogen and the reduction of around 9 Mt of greenhouse gas emissions.
After this successful round, and the many lessons learned and improvements made from the first two auctions, it is clear that the EHB is proving to be one of the most valuable funding tools for first mover projects in the hydrogen space.
The €3.3bn budget allocated to the Bank by the European Commission was divided into €800m for the first auction, €1.2bn for the second, and €1.3bn for this year’s edition. Notwithstanding the fact that not all this money has been or will be disbursed, it is time the European Commission renews the EHB. But the prospect of that is currently unclear and, with the freshly announced EU Industrial Decarbonisation Bank (IDB), there is a new and interesting angle to consider.
