EU and Japan step up hydrogen cooperation

The Clean Hydrogen Partnership, a public-private partnership supporting research and innovation (R&I) activities in hydrogen technologies in Europe, has signed a cooperation agreement with Japan’s New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO).

The agreement was signed on June 23, on the occasion of the Japan-EU Hydrogen High-Level Business Forum.

The common goal is to accelerate the deployment of hydrogen technologies which would lead to creating a global hydrogen market and contribute to carbon neutrality.

Under the agreement, the Clean Hydrogen Partnership and NEDO will explore the possibility of synergies and promoting joint research and demonstration projects. It will further promote the collaboration between research centers and industries in Europe and Japan.

Areas for collaboration include exchange of data and knowledge, periodical meetings on areas of mutual interest such as electrolysis, HRS for heavy duties, hydrogen carriers like ammonia and hydrogen combustion, and joint contribution to standardization.

“We need to tackle as fast as possible the challenges linked with energy transition and climate changes. The agreement signed today between NEDO and Clean Hydrogen JU is a game changer. It will strengthen the knowledge and capacity of scientific and industrial sectors along the value chain and will put our research centres and our industries on a fast track. Moreover, we have similar challenges and partnership will help to accelerate and address them,” said the new Executive Director of the Clean Hydrogen Partnership, Valerie Bouillon Delporte.

The Clean Hydrogen Partnership underlined the importance of the milestone as it is the first international cooperation agreement of the partnership.

It follows and aligns with the memorandum of cooperation (MoC) between the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry of Japan and the European Commission in 2022, to accelerate the cooperation in the field of renewable hydrogen. The agreement formalizes the bilateral cooperation between the Clean Hydrogen Partnership and NEDO over the past 15 years.

On this occasion, several cooperation documents were also signed to promote collaboration between various actors in the hydrogen field, including between the Japan Hydrogen Association and Hydrogen Europe.

Earlier this year, H2Global, a foundation dedicated to accelerating the emergence of markets for clean hydrogen and other low-emissions technologies, and the Japan Organization for Metals and Energy Security (JOGMEC) entered a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to cooperate in the field of clean hydrogen.