Polish Group Receives Millions to Expand Hydrogen Projects

Polish state-owned energy company ORLEN said it has secured more than 1.7 billion zloty ($458.3 million) in grants from European Union (EU) post-pandemic recovery funds to expand its hydrogen energy projects. The company on June 16 said the funding will enable production of hydrogen using renewable energy, along with infrastructure to support the use of hydrogen fuel in central Europe.

The company on Monday said hydrogen is a focus of its transition away from fossil fuels. Orlen in a news release said it wants to have capacity for production equivalent to 900 MW of hydrogen fuel by 2035. It said the majority of its production will be based in Poland.

The grants for ORLEN’s hydrogen projects come from Poland’s National Recovery and Resilience Plan, which represents the country’s share of an EU-wide program designed to help member states with their economic recovery after the Covid-19 pandemic. The funding from the EU primarily will support two projects, known as Green H2 and Hydrogen Eagle, that are designed to make hydrogen using renewable energy resources, along with hydrogen from municipal waste.

“The nearly 2 billion zloty secured … will accelerate progress in the hydrogen segment,” said ORLEN CEO Ireneusz Fąfara in a statement. The executive said the funding will allow the company “to expand and scale up hydrogen production infrastructure more efficiently,” and also will support Poland’s supply network along with that of Europe.

Fąfara also said the money will “support the advancement of this future-oriented technology, which represents one of the key pathways to decarbonization.”

PGE Polska Grupa Energetyczna, Poland’s state-owned public power company and the largest such company in Poland, in March received more than 12 billion zloty ($3.2 billion) in loans to upgrade its power networks. Polskie Sieci Elektroenergetyczne, the national grid operator, in May was awarded 1.3 billion zloty ($349 million) for seven electricity transmission projects. The EU recovery funds are earmarked for countries to use on transitioning to cleaner forms of energy. Each country is required to spend at least 37% of its alloted funds on climate-related projects.

Officials with Poland’s climate ministry on Monday said the agency to date has signed 260 contracts worth nearly 60 billion zloty ($16.1 billion) under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan. The money has been targeted to support renewable energy projects, power grid upgrades, and subsidies for electric vehicles among other uses.

100-MW Electrolyzer Part of Green H2

ORLEN is building a plant in Gdańsk as part of Green H2. The facility will use a 100-MW electrolyzer powered by renewable energy to produce hydrogen for its refining operations. The company also is working with Hystar, a Norwegian group that makes high-efficiency electrolyzers, to support its greater hydrogen rollout. Grzegorz Jóźwiak, director of Hydrogen Technologies and Synthetic Fuels at ORLEN, in May when announcing the collaboration with Hystar said, “ORLENs VC [venture capital] investment in Hystar delivers critical technological support for our hydrogen portfolio. Hystar’s innovative platform is expected to enable annual production of 1.5 GW of high-efficiency membrane electrolyzers as early as 2027. Thanks to the capital commitment, ORLEN Group gains access not only to the equipment, but also the know-how and the opportunity to cooperate, among other things, in the development of the technology and its implementation. This solution can also be an important support in the attainment of ORLEN’s strategic goals for the next decade, especially since by 2035 we want to use 350,000 tons of renewable and low-emission hydrogen annually.”

The Hydrogen Eagle project, an investment program launched in 2022, includes plans to build nine hydrogen hubs for producing and distributing the fuel across Poland, as well as the Czech Republic and Slovakia. The company said the hubs will be powered by renewable energy, including solar and wind power. Some production plants also will use municipal waste to create hydrogen fuel.

ORLEN is also developing a network of hydrogen refueling stations for transport vehicles, including passenger cars and trucks as well as buses. The company opened its first two public hydrogen refueling stations in Poland last year. Officials said the company has plans for 111 operating hydrogen refueling stations by 2030, about half in Poland with the rest in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. A report from the Biznes Alert news service said Orlen plans to invest at least €150 million ($172 million) in the next few years to build facilities for production and distribution of hydrogen for the transportation sector.

—Darrell Proctor is a senior editor for POWER.