H2CITIES project aimed to create Hydrogen Living Labs in two RIS cities– a region underserved by existing EU and H2 programmes Each city will benefit from six types of hydrogen vehicles on the streets simultaneously: buses, waste trucks, lightweight public services, private cars, and logistics trucks. Innovators were supposed to test new products, supply chains, new components and work with local community and citizens on adapting to a new hydrogen economy. H2CITIES intended to break that circular conundrum to build a replicable roadmap for local authorities to add hydrogen into their existing Net Zero Strategies.
EIT Hydrogen Cities (H2CITIES) created a roadmap for cities to include hydrogen (H2) solutions in their net zero planning. Hydrogen is an essential component of the energy mix needed for cities to reach net zero targets. H2CITIES directly addressed the barrier issues of limited infrastructure, low demand, and skills capacity in two cities on a systemic level. The project focused on the hard-to-abate sectors of transport and logistics that are essential for an economically vibrant and liveable city, yet not as suited to electrification as a replacement for carbon-based sources as other sectors. These two sectors were supposed to be supported via the city authorities to develop a shared infrastructure to de-risk investment and provide economies of scale to deliver a Hydrogen Living lab including industrial and logistical challenges. The consortia intended to then animate the hydrogen start-up community to build upon the initial investments and drive design and testing of new solutions for successful H2 adoption and public acceptance. As such, H2CITIES was a timely response to the current challenges industry, mobility, and cities face in responding to the climate and energy crises.
Moreover, H2CITIES prioritised cities within the EIT’s Eastern RIS region.
As well as possessing innovation challenges, RIS cities have ageing infrastructure. H2CITIES focused on orchestrating hydrogen innovation and uptake in RIS cities and on supporting their capitalisation on the rapidly developing hydrogen economy to ensure the H2 revolution does not exacerbate existing structural and historic disadvantage. The just transitions programme supporting coal regions such as the Transition in Coal intensive Regions project TRACER Project 6 are natural partners for the RIS focused actions.
