The European Commission has approved a plan put forward by seven member states to spend €6.9bn on infrastructure for hydrogen energy.

The countries are France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, and Slovakia.

The EU said the state aid would draw around €5.4bn in private investment.

The money will be spent on 33 projects carried out by 32 companies.

The work will include:

• Deploying 3.2GW of electrolysers to produce green hydrogen from splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen;
• Building or converting 2,700km of pipelines to carry hydrogen;
• Building storage facilities with capacity of at least 370GWh;
• Building port infrastructure for liquid organic hydrogen carriers able to handle 6,000 tonnes of ammonia a year.

Participants will also collaborate on the development of common standards to help the formation of an integrated hydrogen market.

Eventually, it is hoped that a continent-wide hydrogen ecosystem can arise as regional clusters grow and merge.

No detailed timeline for the projects has been set out, but the deadline for the overall completion of projects is planned for 2029.