The North Adriatic Hydrogen Valley will be launched in September after the project's lead partner, Slovenia's power holding HSE, signed a contract on EU funding with the Clean Hydrogen Partnership.

HSE signed the contract for the six-year project last week on behalf of the consortium of 34 partners from Slovenia, Croatia and Italy's Friuli Venezia Giulia.

In an announcement on 26 July, HSE said the contract signing means the transnational project was given the official go ahead.

Earlier this year the project won a €25 million grant from the EU's Horizon Europe programme. The Slovenian Energy Ministry will get about €354,000 for the project from the REPowerEU programme.

North Adriatic Hydrogen Valley brings together 34 government, research, and industry partners and covers the entire value chain from production through storage and distribution to the end use of hydrogen in various sectors, primarily in industry and transport.

The partners from the three countries will develop 17 pilot projects to produce, store and distribute more than 5,000 tonnes of green hydrogen a year.

Of the planned 5,000 tonnes, infrastructure to produce up to 3,000 tonnes of renewable hydrogen a year is planned at the Slovenian thermal power station TEŠ in Šoštanj, north-east.

The goal of the project is to decarbonise key industries such as steel and cement industries, and introduce sustainable transport solutions.

"We are proud that this very interesting and promising North Adriatic Hydrogen Valley project has been declared one of the best projects in the Horizon Europe call and that we are the lead partner in it," HSE director general Tomaž Štokelj was quoted as saying.

He believes that the planned hydrogen infrastructure at TEŠ will contribute to a just transition from coal to renewables in a region that will phase out coal by 2033.