The Clean Hydrogen Partnership is currently setting up a Hydrogen Valleys Facility aimed to support Hydrogen Valleys and a broad range of stakeholders within the hydrogen context to advance their hydrogen projects and to contribute to capacity building, knowledge sharing and skill development.

As part of this Hydrogen Valleys Facility, the Clean Hydrogen Partnership will be providing critical Project Development Assistance (PDA) to Hydrogen Valleys at different maturity stages to accelerate their progress and to advance their projects towards Final Investment Decision (FID).

Hydrogen Valleys are hydrogen ecosystems that cover a specific geography ranging from local or regional focus to specific national or international regions, thereby supplying with a common hydrogen supply infrastructure several sectors in their geography such as mobility, industry and energy end uses. Across their geographic scope, Hydrogen Valleys cover multiple steps in the hydrogen value chain, ranging from hydrogen production, storage of hydrogen and distribution to offtakers via various modes of transport.

Under this Call for Applications for Project Development Assistance, the Clean Hydrogen partnership aims to provide PDA services for up to 15 Hydrogen Valleys located within an EU member state or a country associated to Horizon Europe via two different tracks of support programmes: PDA light and PDA plus.

The Clean Hydrogen Partnership has mandated the consulting firm Roland Berger, with its specialised subcontractors Worley and Inycom, to provide the PDA services under this call and manage the application process (PDA Service Consultants). The PDA services will cover the following four dimensions: 

1. Commercial aspects (incl. renewable and derivatives production, transportation, offtake, business planning, commercial structuring as well as financing and funding)
2. Technical aspects (incl. process design, tech selection, site selection, cost estimates and risk management)
3. Regulatory aspects (incl. permits, certifications and public acceptance strategy)
4. Valley governance aspects (incl. consortium building, stakeholder management, project governance and planning)

Applicants can apply for one of the two different support programmes: 

1. PDA light: This programme is aimed at supporting early-stage hydrogen projects in advancing towards a compelling pre-feasibility project concept. The total programme duration is 6 weeks.
2. PDA plus: This programme is aimed at supporting more advanced hydrogen projects that already have a concept study (FEL 1 or equivalent) in place and that have a Commercial Date of Operations of the Hydrogen Valley in less than 42 months at the time of the submission deadline. The total programme duration is 12 weeks.

Applications must be submitted exclusively via this application portal and in English. The deadline for submission of applications under this Call for Applications is September 19 2025 at 23:59 CET.

Applicants are planned to be notified of the outcome of the evaluation by mid-October 2025. The start of the PDA support is planned by beginning of November 2025.