Eighteen Slovenian companies, organisations and municipalities have formed a consortium to create an ecosystem for hydrogen from low-carbon sources in a step toward attracting a Japanese partner to vie for funding from the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organisation (NEDO), Japan's advanced technology agency.

The objective is to set up hydrogen ecosystem demonstration projects. The idea is that the Slovenian consortium would make available infrastructure for these projects, but it needs a partner with hydrogen equipment production capabilities.

The consortium was put together by the Slovenian and Japanese Business Council, the Slovenian Engineering Academy, and ELES, Slovenia's national grid operator, in an effort to speed up the use of hydrogen.

ELES director Aleksander Mervar said that a year and a half ago, he told the NEDO president about the idea for a consortium to partner up with a Japanese organisation and vie for NEDO funds. The response was encouraging, but also clear that success would depend on the efforts of the consortium.

"The first step was the formation of a strong Slovenian consortium to partner with a potential Japanese partner which would apply for a NEDO call. This will be followed by the signing of an agreement between the consortium and the Japanese partner, and the final step will be the implementation of one or more demonstration projects," Mervar said.

The idea has been backed by the Slovenian government, with the ministers in charge of foreign affairs, energy, economy and innovation, Tanja Fajon, Bojan Kumer, Matjaž Han and Igor Papič attending the signing of the consortium contract on 15 March.

Fajon noted the increasingly closer cooperation between Slovenia and Japan; Japanese companies are currently the biggest Asian investor in Slovenia. "Such joint projects encourage new links in many fields, looking for solutions to our joint challenges," Fajon said.

Kumer underlined that hydrogen will play a key role in the coming decades, above all in decarbonisation of the business sector. He also pointed to North Adriatic Hydrogen Valley, a €700 million cross-border project launched last year.