Clean Hydrogen Partnership 2nd Call for Project Development Assistance (PDA) 2026 — Closed

Clean Hydrogen Partnership 2nd Call for Project Development Assistance (PDA) 2026 — Closed

The Clean Hydrogen Partnership’s second Call for Applications for Project Development Assistance (PDA) is closed. The call opened on April 20, 2026 and the submission deadline was June 26, 2026 at 23:59 CET. The official H2V portal says that applications received after the deadline would not be considered. This page is therefore a historical reference for the 2026 second call, not an active route for submitting a new application.

The programme itself is still relevant to Hydrogen Valley developers. PDA is a service-based support programme intended to help hydrogen ecosystems move toward a Final Investment Decision (FID). It provides tailored consulting in commercial, technical, regulatory, and valley-governance areas. It does not announce a cash award to spend on construction, equipment, or project development invoices. The official pages describe the service as free to a selected Hydrogen Valley, while the applicant remains responsible for preparing the application and assigning internal people to work with the service consultants.

Key details from the closed call

The support is aimed at Hydrogen Valleys rather than isolated projects that do not meet the programme’s ecosystem criteria. A Hydrogen Valley can have a local, regional, national, or cross-border scope, but it must connect several parts of the hydrogen value chain and serve more than one end use. The official description covers production, storage, transport or distribution, and offtake across uses such as mobility, industry, and energy.

What PDA provides

PDA is designed for projects that have real development work underway but still need structured analysis before investors, public authorities, industrial users, and project partners can make informed decisions. The Clean Hydrogen Partnership describes four support dimensions.

1. Commercial support can examine hydrogen and derivative markets, renewable production or sourcing, offtake strategy, business planning, commercial structure, financing, and funding.
2. Technical support can address process design, technology selection, asset sizing, site selection, cost estimates, risk management, and optimisation of the technical concept.
3. Regulatory support can cover permits, certifications, production pathways, and socio-economic or public-acceptance considerations.
4. Valley governance support can help with consortium building, stakeholder management, project governance, and planning.

The second call divided the offer according to project maturity. PDA light was a six-week service for early-stage Hydrogen Valleys working toward a compelling pre-feasibility concept. PDA plus was a 12-week service for more advanced Valleys with a completed concept study at FEL 1 level or an equivalent standard and a Commercial Date of Operations before 01/01/2030. The programme lines were evaluated separately, and each Hydrogen Valley had to select one line rather than apply for PDA light and PDA plus at the same time.

The H2V pages name Roland Berger as the consulting firm mandated to provide the service, with Worley covering specialised technical design work and Inycom supporting the underlying platform infrastructure. The value of the programme is therefore access to a defined advisory team and a structured period of work, not a transfer of grant money. A selected beneficiary must provide relevant project information, participate actively, and work with the consultants to agree the scope and deliverables.

Eligibility for the 2026 second call

The call allowed applications from two broad types of organisation: a regional, local, or other authority or umbrella organisation coordinating projects in a Hydrogen Valley, and a project developer directly developing the Valley project. The applicant had to be the legal entity primarily responsible for overall development of the Hydrogen Valley. Where several partners applied together, the Valley had to designate a lead developer to submit the application. Other partners could support the submission through letters of commitment.

The Hydrogen Valley and the applicant organisation’s headquarters had to be in an EU Member State or a country associated with Horizon Europe. The official FAQ also required the project to meet the following substantive conditions:

• It had to be based on clean hydrogen in line with the Clean Hydrogen Partnership’s strategic approach.
• Planned eligible CAPEX had to be at least EUR 30 million. The threshold covered hydrogen production, storage, transport or distribution, and end-use applications; renewable-energy generation was excluded from that CAPEX calculation.
• The project had to be under real development with at least a defined project outline and a defined local or regional geographic scope.
• The Valley had to cover multiple steps from hydrogen production through storage, transport, and offtake.
• The project had to supply more than one end use in mobility, energy, and/or industry.
• Applications and supporting documents had to be submitted in English through the PDA Applicant’s area.
• Only one PDA application could be submitted per Hydrogen Valley.

Projects that had already reached FID or were already operational were not eligible. Prior funding from the Clean Hydrogen Partnership, participation in an earlier or upcoming partnership call, or registration on the H2V Platform was not required. Previous partnership funding also did not automatically disqualify a project, although applicants with earlier support had to explain the additional value of the requested PDA work.

The programme could consider green hydrogen derivatives such as e-methanol, e-ammonia, and e-SAF. The FAQ also said that low-carbon hydrogen could be used at an early stage when the project showed a clear route toward renewable hydrogen as its ultimate objective. An offtake agreement was not a prerequisite, although evidence of commercial maturity could strengthen an application.

What the application process required

The application process for this call is no longer open, but its published steps are useful for teams preparing for a future announcement. Applicants had to register in the PDA Applicant’s area, enter basic Hydrogen Valley information in the online interface, choose either PDA light or PDA plus according to project maturity, and upload the documents specified in Chapter 2.4 of the Call Specifications. The application could be saved and resumed in the portal. Email or postal submission was not accepted, and there was no application fee.

For a consortium, the lead developer submitted on behalf of the partners. A regional or local authority could coordinate an application directly; other applicant types needed the required letter of support from a regional or local authority. Applicants selecting PDA plus had to document both a completed FEL 1 or equivalent concept study and the required Commercial Date of Operations before 01/01/2030. The FAQ listed the types of evidence that could form part of a concept study, including conceptual plant design, inputs and outputs, supply-chain information, permitting, high-level construction planning, operations and maintenance information, risk management, and a Class 5 cost estimate.

The portal expected a combination of online project information and uploaded documents rather than a long-form email proposal. A sensible preparation file for a future call would therefore include a concise project outline, the Valley’s geography and partners, technical assumptions, CAPEX logic, planned end uses, governance arrangements, commercial and offtake evidence where available, and a clear explanation of why external PDA support is needed. These materials should be consistent with one another: an ambitious business case is not enough if the technical outline, implementation plan, and governance evidence describe different projects.

Selection and participation obligations

Eligible applications were assessed against commercial maturity, technical maturity, governance and operational maturity, contribution to REPowerEU and the Clean Industrial Deal, and the rationale for PDA. The official FAQ states that an application had to reach at least five out of ten points in each award criterion, and that meeting the minimum did not guarantee an award because only the highest-ranked applications within the available places could receive support.

Successful applicants had to sign the Model Declaration of Collaboration before support could begin. A mandatory scoping period of approximately two to three weeks was planned after notification. During that phase, the consultants would refine the work scope and request relevant commercial, technical, regulatory, and governance data. Beneficiaries were expected to keep the data accurate and current, upload it to the designated shared data room, and participate actively throughout delivery.

The official call page listed notification of evaluation results around mid-July 2026, followed by support planned to begin at the beginning of September 2026. It described six-week and 12-week delivery periods according to the selected track. Those milestones belong to the closed 2026 call and should not be read as a current application timetable. The service itself carried no charge, but applicants had to cover preparation costs and provide staff time for scoping, regular meetings, data requests, and decision-making.

Future calls and how to monitor them

The Clean Hydrogen Partnership FAQ says that a total of three PDA calls were planned between 2025 and 2027, with up to 40 PDAs planned across those calls. It also records that 15 PDAs had already been completed under the first call in 2025. The same FAQ directs prospective applicants to updates from the Clean Hydrogen Partnership and the Hydrogen Valley Platform for future-call details.

No next PDA deadline, opening date, or application window is confirmed on the official pages used for this update. Teams should not treat the June 26, 2026 deadline as a standing or recurring date, and they should not submit materials to the closed second-call portal expecting them to be considered. The practical next step is to monitor the official PDA portal and the Clean Hydrogen Partnership’s announcements, then compare any future Call Specifications with the project’s current maturity, geography, CAPEX, end uses, and governance structure.

Archive note

This opportunity remains listed because it documents a real Clean Hydrogen Partnership support cycle and the requirements that applied to the second call. Its historical status is intentional. The deadline field records the closed call’s actual closing date, while the page body explains that later PDA calls are planned without asserting a date that the official source has not published.

Official pages:

• PDA Programme and Applicant’s area
• Project Development Assistance Programme