Innovative business models advancing renewable electrolysis integration in industry

Expected Outcome

Renewable hydrogen is pivotal for decarbonising energy-intensive and hard-to-abate industrial sectors, such as steel (via combustion or direct reduction), chemicals, ammonia, methanol, and petrochemicals. Challenges related to cost competitiveness should be tackled in earnest. By 2030, these efforts should aim to establish renewable hydrogen as a commercially viable feedstock, reducing agent, energy vector whilst simultaneously enhancing its sustainability (including the potential circularity of hydrogen production technologies), thus positioning Europe as a leader in industrial decarbonisation.

However, recent delays and cancellations have shown that, while technical progress is ongoing, economic, contractual and financial bottlenecks hinder projects from reaching Final Investment Decision (FID). At the same time, innovative business models - including new ownership models, licensing/service-based approaches and variable revenue schemes - are needed to unlock private capital and ensure long-term competitiveness. These should be complemented by appropriate financing and contractual architecture, with the aim of fostering the success of projects under development, raising awareness among public decision makers, and validating strategies through large-scale industrial integration cases.

This topic aims to design and validate innovative business models for industrial renewable hydrogen integration, and to check their bankability through simplified financial, contractual and policy analysis in cooperation with relevant stakeholders.

By addressing these challenges, the CSA will contribute to the objectives of the Clean Industrial Deal, supporting Europe’s industrial base in decarbonising competitively, attracting private investment, and strengthening resilience across value chains.

Projects are expected to contribute to all the following outcomes:

• Accelerated financial maturity of Hydrogen integration in industry through innovative business model solutions for industrial hydrogen integration, including diversified revenue streams, new ownership/licensing/service arrangements, and variable-revenue schemes.
• Improvements and validation of investment-readiness, by checking the bankability of these models against simplified financial, contractual and policy criteria.
• Advanced maturity of developers, investors and policymakers with evidence-based recommendations, drawing lessons from both successful and failed projects.
• Facilitated replication and EU-wide applicability, through guidance on how business model archetypes can be transferred to other clean hydrogen production routes.
• EU wide diffused knowledge through tangible publicly available results and materials for uptake, including an innovation compendium, open modelling templates, simplified contractual checklists (e.g. Power Purchase Agreements/PPAs, Hydrogen Purchase Agreements/HPAs) and policy briefs.

Project results are expected to contribute to the objectives and KPIs of the Clean Hydrogen JU SRIA:

• Reduction of Levelised Cost of Hydrogen (LCOH) at end-use;
• Increase of volume of the total clean hydrogen consumed in industrial applications.

Scope

Proposals should center efforts on business model innovation as the primary focus for renewable electrolysis integration in industry (including but not limited to Power-to-X applications), while validating their feasibility in at least one real industrial case.

Activities should include:

• Forensic and business case learnings: structured review of both successful and failed projects across the EU and associated countries, creating a database of known-anonymised FID outcomes, mapping root causes of failure and critical success conditions, with a risk typology by sector.
• Business model design: exploration of new archetypes such as:
• Revenue diversification (valorisation of co-products, participation in grid/system service markets, guarantees of origin, carbon credits);
• Innovative commercial and ownership structures (licensing, leasing, tolling, “electrolysis-as-a-service”, Special Purpose Vehicles/SPVs, Public-Private Partnerships/PPPs, Joint Ventures);
• Variable revenue schemes (dynamic/indexed PPAs, performance-based HPAs, bundled hydrogen + co-product sales);
• Distribution of responsibilities among actors in Engineering, Procurement and Construction (Management)/EPC(M) with implications for cost, risk and timing.
• Techno-economic optimisation tools: use advanced software-based methods and algorithms to achieve techno-economic optimisation, with the goal of reducing LCOH and increasing overall value. The scope covers optimisation of sizing, flexibility strategies, grid services, coordination between hydrogen production and consumption units, and valorisation of side products such as oxygen and heat. Including the business models schemes designed during the project and finding optimal scenarios among the uncertainty of market offtakes, original equipment manufacturer (OEM) pricing trajectories or raw materials cost evolutions may lead to target specific models and algorithms development activities.
• Bankability stress-test: simplified financial and contractual analysis, including indicative checklists and templates (PPA/HPA clauses, co-product annexes, risk-sharing examples) and sensitivity modelling to check the investment-readiness of the proposed business models.
• Policy and support framework: concise mapping of EU and national support schemes (including cumulation and cross-border rules), with recommendations for better alignment of national markets within EU instruments, updated during the project lifetime.
• Sustainability and circularity: LCA/LCCA templates, sustainable water supply, reduction of water/energy consumption, recyclability and eco-design, hydrogen safety. Existing work on LCA, e.g. the JRC LCA checklist , should be appropriately considered.
• Application to real cases: at least one real industrial case is mandatory. The consortium shall apply its business model innovations to this case and check their bankability through simplified investment-readiness analysis. A second case may be included for comparative illustration, but only one full assessment is expected. If relevant, real-life tests may be carried out on an existing site to generate data for the techno-economic analysis. However, operating and equipment costs for running these tests are not eligible.
• Replication and future complementarity: guidance on replicability of business models across other clean hydrogen production routes (in line with the SRIA[1]), and structured input for potential future EU tenders or studies specifically targeting detailed bankability frameworks.

Projects are expected to produce key outputs on the following topics:

• Set-up and animate a project legacy Forum to be connected to relevant existing ones (if any) to bring together an extended community, including all the needed stakeholders (including e.g. institutional investors, regulatory bodies, financial institutions). This platform should also be the display and discussion ground for the projects results as described below.
• European White Paper on success and failure factors in industrial hydrogen projects, including critical lessons learned and practical “dos and don’ts” for developers, investors and policymakers within the first year of project.
• Business Model Innovation Compendium, showcasing innovative approach to ownership, licensing and service models, variable revenue schemes and digital tailored optimization tools, with guidance for replication across sectors.
• Open-source parametric economic model pack, including documentation and sensitivity templates to assess investment-readiness of business models.
• Bankability Assessment for at least one real site, presenting results of simplified stress-tests, sensitivity analysis and indicative contractual/financial examples, accompanied by a short replication guide.
• Policy outputs, including concise briefs on state-aid, cumulation and permitting, as well as structured input for potential future EU tenders or studies focusing on detailed bankability frameworks.
• The definition of projects as good candidates for a pipeline that could benefit from the application of the results

Projects should build on prior, and find synergies with new, Clean Hydrogen JU projects and/or Process4Planet, Clean Steel partnerships and Innovation Fund initiatives. Proposals should also collaborate as relevant with the Hydrogen Valleys supported by the Clean Hydrogen JU, including those benefiting from the project development assistance provided by the Hydrogen Valleys Facility[2].

The industrial case(s) chosen by consortia may rely on new electrolysis plant components (including compression, heat exchange, purification, cooling, controllers, gas separation, power electronics and storages), or existing ones (improved, revamped).

Purchase of equipment, infrastructure or other assets used for the action are excluded from the eligible costs.

Consortia should include the necessary mix (by size, expertise and value-chain role) of industrial developers/offtakers, technology providers, financial/state-aid/economic expertise, legal/regulatory experts, digital optimisation and business-model solutions. Consortia are invited to propose, build and animate relevant sectorial Collaboration Hubs involving banks, insurers, regulators, promoters, and other primary stakeholders to collaborate and co-create on the long term even outside the scope of the project (e.g. yearly meeting events).

For additional elements applicable to all topics please refer to section 2.2.3.2

The JU estimates that an EU contribution of maximum EUR 1.50 million would allow these outcomes to be addressed appropriately.

[1] https://www.clean-hydrogen.europa.eu/about-us/key-documents/strategic-research-and-innovation-agenda_en

[2]