What is the HyEfRe project and what are its goals.
HyEfRe project is part of the broader European program “Interreg CENTRAL EUROPE” which finances development programs thanks to interregional cooperation.
HyEfRe will counteract challenges related to low integration and balancing of fluctuating renewable energy sources (wind and photovoltaic), suboptimal energy efficiency and lack of carbon-neutrality in CE energy systems, resulting in high energy prices and climate change. Sector-coupling via hydrogen is a promising solution to mitigate these obstacles.
Transnational cooperation will reinforce local /regional learning curves for green hydrogen integration. HyEfRe will foster an investment-friendly environment for renewable energy and green hydrogen technologies integrated with regard to energy efficiency (e.g. waste heat utilisation) and balancing, via an innovative holistic approach.
Hydrogen potentials including storage and grid balancing will be evaluated using a newly created model. A tool to calculate ideal parameters and operation schedule for technical plants (e.g. gridbalancing electrolysers) will be developed. These solutions, tested in pilot actions, enable investors to make economically feasible decisions. The development of an action plan for policy actors will lead to reduction of regulatory/legal barriers impeding on timely renewables and hydrogen expansion and improved economic framework conditions.
Social acceptance issues, often hindering change, will be tackled through engagement strategies tailored to the country and stakeholder-specific requirements. The project will lead to the establishment of hydrogen ecosystems in the participating regions, supporting uptake of solutions and strategies, considering all stakeholders.
Our consortium consists of research institutes, energy/regional development agencies and SMEs experienced in renewable energy and hydrogen integration, modelling, optimization & IT, legal/economic assessment and stakeholder engagement. HyEfRe will advance the timely energy transition towards carbon-neutrality and result in decentralized new jobs, increasing prosperity and ensuring Europe’s leading role in the renewable energy sector.
The Role of We Europe
The tasks the organisation is contributing will be:
- Analysis of best practice examples regarding green hydrogen projects in its region;
- Analysis of economic framework conditions and development of business models;
- Analysis of the most important stakeholders;
- Legal analysis regarding hydrogen, power-to-gas and waste heat utilisation;
- Analysis of hydrogen strategies in Italy / its region (Veneto);
- Contribution to the development of a transnational action plan for green hydrogen integration;
- Stakeholder workshop for Italian stakeholders for follow-up project development (using tools and results from the project)
In WP1, We Europe will be involved mainly in the analysis of best practices. Further, it will be crucial throughout the whole WP 3 for stakeholder analysis and clustering activities, as well as for conducting interviews with experts in order to understand economic and environmental barriers to sustainable energy.
Regarding WP 2, We Europe will provide its contribution in the whole WP conducting a legal analysis related to the Italian territory to understand legal barriers to sustainable energy, building up on the results of a previous project. In this phase cooperation with policy makers to underline the presence of the above-mentioned barriers will be crucial.
We Europe will lead the analysis of the economic framework and the development of business models. For the establishment of hydrogen ecosystems, We Europe will contribute to the formation of a strong stakeholder network through a national workshop. Finally, We Europe will conduct communication and dissemination activities for the Italian partners during the whole duration of the project.
