The Portuguese Government has allocated €70m through a new program which will see the country supporting the production of hydrogen and renewable gases under REPowerEU – a European Commission proposal to end Russian fossil fuel dependence before 2030 as a response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

The office of the Portuguese minister Duarte Cordeiro also mentioned an investment support of €185m from the Recovery and Resilience Programme, which will support the production of hydrogen and renewable gases. In the first round, €102m of this was allocated – totaling €229m of investment – to conduct 25 new projects with an installed capacity of 106MW. The second program – with an allocation of €83m – will result in 39 green hydrogen projects, nine biomethane projects and one hydrogen/biomethane project receiving funding.

“In total, the applications submitted are expected to add 443MW of production capacity, corresponding to a requested funding amount of €353m for a total investment of €906m,” said the environment ministry.

The revision of the Energy and Climate Plan 2030 (PNEC 2030) saw Portugal presenting a renewed ambition in energy and climate policy until 2030, with a focus placed on renewable hydrogen. This resulted in a revision of the National Hydrogen Strategy, with Portugal planning to double the planned capacity of electrolyzers by 2030, from 2.5GW to 5.5GW.