The European Commission will invest 20 million euros in a hydrogen project off the Belgian coast by 2026. It will build and operate hydrogen facilities off the coast of Ostend, in an offshore testing zone intended to be the nerve center of the green hydrogen industry in Belgium.

The HOPE project as it is called – HOPE stands for Hydrogen Offshore Production for Europe – will be of unprecedented scale (10 MW/up to 4 tons of green hydrogen produced a day) and has been selected by the European Commission as part of the European Clean Hydrogen Partnership.

“The production of green hydrogen is crucial for the energy transition and can help us achieve our climate goals,” says Jean de Bethune, chairman of the provincial development agency (Provinciale OntwikkelingsMaatschappij, POM) West Flanders. “It also offers economic opportunities and creates many new jobs in the long term.”

Offshore project

For the first time in the world, green hydrogen will be produced at sea and then exported ashore via a composite pipeline to supply the needs of the regional ecosystem. The aim is to demonstrate this offshore project’s technical and financial viability and pipeline transport for supplying onshore customers.

HOPE is the first offshore project of this size in the world to begin actual implementation, with the production unit and export and distribution infrastructure due to come on stream in mid-2026.

The €20 million grant will be used to finance the design phases, the supply of equipment, and the construction work, as well as research, development, and innovation work focusing mainly on optimizing technological solutions and the operation of this type of infrastructure.

Consortium

On a much larger scale, the techno-economic analysis of offshore renewable hydrogen production solutions will be in other work areas. The HOPE project is being coordinated by Lhyfe (France) and implemented by eight European partners: Alfa Laval (Denmark), Plug (the Netherlands), Strohm (the Netherlands), EDP NEW (Portugal), ERM (France), CEA (France), POM West Flanders (Belgium), and DWR eco (Germany).