Building with collective intelligence
HYDEA Community is intended to be an across borders forum for all hydrogen stakeholders. Throughout 2024, the Community has made significant progress in structuring and dynamizing the seven focus groups, consolidating itself as a transnational space for the exchange of knowledge and the promotion of hydrogen in the ports of the Atlantic Area. Indeed, the focus groups are working right now on specific hydrogen topics: production, storage and distribution, transport and infrastructure, industrial uses, marine mobility, other uses, and strategy in ports. The implementation of these focus groups will allow for the collection of expert knowledge, the generation of strategic recommendations and the identification of concrete collaboration opportunities, consolidating the impact of the project.
Guidelines to create realistic ports action plans
The first step was to provide a structured approach for HYDEA partners to create hydrogen action plans to their ports. Recognising that ports respond to external policies and market demands rather than initiate major energy transitions, the focus is placed on enabling port users to adopt hydrogen-based solutions. The guidelines begin with identifying and involving key port users, understanding their energy use, operational needs, and decarbonisation pressures. The next step is to determine where hydrogen can be effectively applied by evaluating technical feasibility, cost, and stakeholder interest. These findings are used to define clear, practical actions supported by appropriate infrastructure, partnerships, and timelines. The final step outlines how to monitor implementation through key performance indicators, and regular reporting. By following this method, HYDEA partners will create realistic, time-bound, and user-oriented action plans that support investment, align with policy signals, and accelerate the decarbonisation across the Atlantic Area.
First step towards a decision support tool
Being the main objective of HYDEA to boost the hydrogen transition in the Atlantic Area ports, the project is tasked to develop a decision support tool for hydrogen applications in ports. This tool will ultimately support future decision-making and the evaluation of individual hydrogen technologies in different scenarios. It will be developed using data and conclusions gathered from the technical, economic, environmental and societal assessment of different case studies in the Atlantic Area. A framework was first defined to provide a standardized structure that ensures all critical topics are addressed in the case studies. Ultimately, the information gathered will feed the decision support tool.
Supporting the development of hydrogen-based technologies
While there are already proven hydrogen-based technologies that primarily require adaptation to specific installation site conditions, new concepts are constantly being developed by academic researchers, industry professionals, and entrepreneurs. However, many of these innovators face a lack of resources to implement their ideas. Throughout the project, HYDEA consortium is launching three successive calls to provide access to the partners’ experimental facilities and expertise to support the development and testing of pre-commercial, innovative technologies. The selection process involves a thorough review and evaluation by an independent selection panel comprising experts in the project’s core focus areas as well as a board of the HYDEA project representatives. The selection criteria include scientific merit, technological feasibility, and market potential, with priority given to solutions that can be integrated into port environments. The schedule is as follows: call n°1 – application from May to July 2025, call n°2 – application from September to November 2025, and call n°3 – application from January to March 2026.
Photo credit: APDL
