The sustainable wastes management in Europe is an emerging issue of the circular economy due to the restrictions given by EU Directive (waste streams as defined in the respective regulations including Renewable Energy Directive (2018/2001 EU) and Waste Directive (2008/98/EC)), that is encouraging operators and territories (mostly cities, large urban areas and Regions) to enter into a circularity approach, avoiding landfill disposal, and limiting the milage of exports to other plants out of the specific Region/territory. Therefore, the work proposed should be performed in conformity with these and other relevant EU policies and regulation on utilisation of waste.

Wastes cannot be reintroduced into recycling and a second life: they are instead forced to the end of life, within a linear approach. It is therefore of high interest to find alternative ways than the ones described above and drive the territories to find effective and efficient solutions for the wastes’ conversion within a more circular approach.

The potential of the sector is huge, considering in Europe there are about 300 million tonnes of wastes, with the hydrogen production capacity of about 30 million tonnes, equal to about 50% of the calorific value of the original waste. This could be an enormous contribution at a net negative carbon emission and with a potential for a LCOH below 3 €/kg and approaching 1.5 €/kg in best plant options. It has an important potential for sustainable economic growth and is a vector of jobs creation.

Project results are expected to contribute to all of the following expected outcomes:

• Development of the technological process optimised for the conversion of the waste to renewable hydrogen, with a >50% conversion efficiency based on energy content of the final product (hydrogen) vs. energy content of the input streams (electric input and wastes);
• Development of the digital twin and the controls of the demo plant;
• System prototype demonstration in operational environment (TRL 7) at relevant industrial scale with above 3 MW scale reactor for at least 4,000 hours;
• Develop new sustainability-oriented business models for treatment plants in optimised territorial management of waste flows, demonstrating the LCOH at a target production cost of <3 €/kg;
• Feasibility study for the upscaling of the technology at the relevant industrial scale, to convert wastes on a regional dimension (in the range of 10,000 tonnes/year of recycled waste or above), including the analysis of technical, economic, social barriers and/or drivers;
• A new and/or improved process addressing both the hydrogen and circular economy in areas with high potential of wastes, including design of the specific territorial services;

Project results are expected to contribute (according to the solution addressed in the project) to the following objectives and KPIs of the Clean Hydrogen JU SRIA:

• In case of hydrogen production via waste/biomass gasification:
  • System carbon yield H₂/C > 0.27
  • System capital cost €/(kg/d) < 1.45
  • System operational cost €/kg < 0.0105
• In case of the biological production:
  • System carbon yield H₂/COD > 0.015
  • Reactor production rate kg H₂/m³/d > 15
  • System capital cost €/(kg/d) < 400
  • System operational cost €/kg < 3
• Additional target values are listed below:
  • Reactor conversion rate kg input material (waste) /h > 1000
  • Reactor scale MW > 3
  • Operational time h > 4,000 h
  • Yearly hydrogen production kg ~180,000

The scope of this flagship topic is to develop and demonstrate a pilot plant processing wastes and converting them into hydrogen. Different conversion processes maybe be considered, involving for example, but not limited to, gasification, pyrolysis, plasma supported, electrochemical processes, steam gasification, including multistage processes and related reactors.

Projects should bring one of the available conversion technologies to a higher maturity by testing and validating a demonstrator plant with a reactor size of at least 3 MW working in an operational environment for at least 4,000 hours with an equivalent yearly hydrogen production of 180 tonnes H2. Proposals should demonstrate the potential for upscaling and market deployment in the near term. All innovative conversion technologies approaching the expected scale of operation can be considered.

The system developed should include the following options:

• A multi-stage waste to hydrogen technology, at a relevant industrial scale, including all the units and subunits to allow a proper and independent functioning of the plant;
• Eventual gas upgrading, separation, purification and compression stages delivering hydrogen at a minimum purity level of 99.9%, or following the end user requirements, and at a target pressure of 30 bars, integrated and adapted to the specific technology and conversion process;
• A built-in design of the demo technology to optimise the overall conversion efficiency, including options such as solar thermal and/or PV, waste heat and waste gas management with exclusion for downstream energy (co)generation solutions.

Waste in this topic is understood as mainly organic waste (for example but not limited to agricultural residues, sewage, urban waste, etc.) Proposals should focus on wastes without any direct recycling potential and on the production of sustainable, renewable hydrogen (in line with the requirements of the EC proposal for the revision of RED II^[1])

Proposals should address the following:

• Improve the operational parameters of the reactor processing wastes beyond the current state of the art;
• Optimisation of the processing of wastes to maximise the process parameters and the hydrogen yield;
• Adapt and validate the technology for a wide acceptance range of wastes, including at high moisture content (up to 50%) and calorific values (from 2 to 5 kWh/kg of waste);
• Increase of the overall efficiency of the processing reactors and units, maintaining use of waste heat and gas streams as well as integrating other renewable resources e.g., of solar energy for the wastes drying or reactor preheating;
• Increase the overall plant efficiency beyond the present state-of–the-art, as indicated in the previous section;
• Optimise the mass and energy balance of the process including all the products streams (e.g., hydrogen, other coproducts and the internal thermal and electric energy consumption;
• Perform plant multi objective optimisation, dynamic modelling to reach a final optimised design and to identify the process parameters for the demo control and safety strategies;
• Development gas separation and purification units delivering the hydrogen at a minimum purity level of 99.9%, in any case adapted at the end-use application proposed;
• Locate the demo plant in a region with a hydrogen end use identified at least at the scale of the prototype plant;
• Perform a techno-economic analysis with the target of LCOH < 3 €/kgH₂ for the scaled up plant;
• Perform an LCA and LCC analysis comparing the specific technology with other hydrogen production solutions, including electrolysis and conversion of the raw biogas, as well as other waste to energy/renewable fuel (e.g. biowaste) pathways including approaches such as direct incineration, biomethane production through anaerobic digestion, bio-fermentation or classical and plasma arc gasification, pyrolysis.

Proposals are expected to address sustainability and circularity aspects of proposed technologies.

Proposals are encouraged to explore synergies with the existing or upcoming related projects funded by the Innovation Fund ^[2].

Proposals are also encouraged to explore synergies with projects running under the EURAMET research programmes EMPIR^[3] and the European Partnership on Metrology (e.g Met4H2^[4]) concerning quality assurance measurements which aim at ensuring that the purity of hydrogen produced is at the expected grade.

Applicants should provide a funding plan to ensure implementation of the project in synergies with other sources of funding. If no other sources of funding will be required, this should be stated clearly in the proposal, with a commitment from the partners to provide own funding. If additional sources of funding will be required, proposals should present a clear plan on which funding programmes at either EU (e.g. Structural Funds, Just Transition Fund, Innovation Fund, Connecting Europe Facility,…) or national levels will be targeted^[5]. In these cases, applicants should present a credible planning that includes forecasted funding programmes and their expected time of commitment.

This topic is expected to contribute to EU competitiveness and industrial leadership by supporting a European value chain for hydrogen and fuel cell systems and components.

It is expected that Guarantees of origin (GOs) will be used to prove the renewable character of the hydrogen that is produced. In this respect consortium may seek out the issuance and subsequent cancellation of GOs from the relevant Member State issuing body and if that is not yet available the consortium may proceed with the issuance and cancellation of non-governmental certificates (e.g CertifHy^[6]).

Proposals should provide a preliminary draft on ‘hydrogen safety planning and management’ at the project level, which will be further updated during project implementation.

Activities are expected to start at TRL 5 and achieve TRL 7 by the end of the project - see General Annex B.

The maximum Clean Hydrogen JU contribution that may be requested is EUR 10.00 million – proposals requesting Clean Hydrogen JU contributions above this amount will not be evaluated.

At least one partner in the consortium must be a member of either Hydrogen Europe or Hydrogen Europe Research.

Purchases of equipment, infrastructure or other assets used for the action must be declared as depreciation costs. However, for the following equipment, infrastructure or other assets purchased specifically for the action (or developed as part of the action tasks): reactor and all units and subunits to allow a proper and independent functioning of the waste to hydrogen plant (e.g. gas upgrading, separation, purification, compression, etc.), costs may exceptionally be declared as full capitalised costs.

The conditions related to this topic are provided in the chapter 2.2.3.2 of the Clean Hydrogen JU 2023 Annual Work Plan and in the General Annexes to the Horizon Europe Work Programme 2023–2024 which apply mutatis mutandis.

[1] https://ec.europa.eu/info/sites/default/files/amendment-renewable-energy-directive-2030-climate-target-with-annexes_en.pdf

[2] For example HyValue (https://www.hyvalue.com/innovation-fund/) and FUREC (https://climate.ec.europa.eu/system/files/2022-07/LSC2_List_of_pre-selected_projects_6.pdf)

[3] https://www.euramet.org/research-innovation/research-empir

[4] https://www.euramet.org/index.php?id=1913

[5] Including awarded, secured or planned funding

[6] https://www.certifhy.eu