Cost-efficient and reliable designs towards gigawatt-scale electrolytic hydrogen production plants

This topic aims to drive innovation in integrated hydrogen production plants by reimagining plant design, architecture, and deployment models. The focus should be on developing novel concepts for highly efficient, cost-competitive, and reliable electrolytic hydrogen production plants at very large scales (≥400 MW), leveraging commercially available electrolyser stacks, advanced system engineering, and innovative BoP and plant components (e.g. purification, compression, thermal integration, power electronics). As relevant, the design specifications and components innovation roadmaps (e.g to optimise performances and durability when operating dynamically or improve end of life recycling), is also encouraged.

Proposals should deliver a complete fully replicable plant concept: a hydrogen production facility capable of delivering renewable hydrogen ex-works (without transport) at highest consumption quality, using available resources (e.g. water and electricity) and complying with EU regulations (notably RFNBO criteria).

The project should cover the following elements:

• Consider a full system integration of a large-scale (≥400 MW) electrolysis capacity and all necessary BoP subsystems (water treatment, cooling, purification, power electronics, compression, storage, etc) and demonstrate scalability to 1000 MW and beyond with strong replicability potential. When relevant, the project may rely on innovative/breakthrough components developed in previous EU-funded projects on full scope plants and BoPs (e.g. on-going in 2025 DJEWELS[[]], ENDURE[[https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101137925]] EPHYRA[[https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101112220]] HERAQCLES[[https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101111784]] HOPE[[https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101111899]] HERMES[[https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101192352]] REMEDHYS[[https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101192503]]);
• Technical and economic optimisation across all parameters affecting hydrogen cost: availability, energy efficiency, DEVEX, CAPEX, OPEX, footprint, water consumption, etc;
• The plant design should valorise as far as possible the by-products from the electrolysis plant (e.g. waste heat, oxygen, water, grid services);
• Scenarios exploring infrastructures and layouts, process simplification, and innovative solutions for cost and footprint optimisation (e.g. pooling, massification, standardisation, …) based on mature solutions. Concrete recommendations are expected to be delivered by the analysis of the scenarios;
• A Reliability, Availability, Maintainability (RAM) analysis or equivalent to quantify system availability, ensuring the plant’s operational reliability. This includes innovations around operations & maintenance solutions particularly to cope with specific challenges of GW-scale plants constraints;
• Investment-grade engineering documentation, including CAPEX Class 3 estimates (AACEI 18R-97) and Front-End Engineering Design (FEED)-level studies, ensuring technical and financial readiness for industrial deployment;
• An energy efficiency and water consumption estimation based on exhaustive analysis (full plant power balance), feedback data from the field and/or supplier guarantees for the major electricity and water consumers of the plant;
• An OPEX estimate based on an explicit methodology, and with verifiable data;
• Modelling, simulation and optimisation tools (development and/or use) to quantify availabilities via RAM studies, achieve techno-economic sensitivity analyses, OPEX and efficiency of the elaborated designs. (FEED-Ready outputs).

Proposals should include RAM analysis, CAPEX Class 3 estimates with FEED-level documentation, and clear OPEX, energy, and water consumption assessments. Designs development will be supported by advanced modelling and optimisation tools to enable robust techno-economic analyses and guide system optimisation. Innovation will focus on system-level integration using existing, proven electrolyser stacks. Proposals should also validate the proposed approach through a representative project case study, demonstrating practical feasibility and scalability. The designed system will target a minimum capacity of 400 MW, with a clear pathway to scale up to 1 GW and beyond.

The following elements are out of scope:

• Activities related to hydrogen pipeline connection or end-use tie-ins;
• Development of new electrolysis cell technologies or fundamental components.

Consortia should include various stakeholders of the hydrogen value chain including, but not limited to, components manufacturers, system manufacturers (at least 2), system integrators, project developers, plant operators, end users, etc. Consortia will gather all technical & economic expertise needed not only for the implementation of the project but also will associate related sectorial clusters and associations helping to ensure the replicability of the project outcomes. To support the replicability of the projects outcomes, project outputs e.g. deliverables, models, etc. are expected to be mainly publicly available.

Projects should build on previous, and find synergies with projects supported under this year Call such as but not only HORIZON-JU-CLEANH2-2026-01-04 ‘Innovative business models advancing renewable electrolysis integration in industry‘ and projects supported by the Process4Planet Partnership and Clean Steel Partnership as well as those projects, activities and initiatives supported by and placed under the Innovation Fund.

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 2.50 million would allow these outcomes to be addressed appropriately.