November 28th, 2023 - The European Commission adopted today the 6th list of energy Projects of Common Interest (PCIs) and Projects of Mutual Interest (PMIs). The SoutH2 Corridor is shown as the “Hydrogen Corridor Italy - Austria – Germany”.
Projects of Common Interest (PCIs) are identified every two years by the European Commission as key cross border infrastructure projects that link the energy systems of EU countries. PCI projects benefit from accelerated approval and implementation procedures as well as, under certain conditions, access to European funding from the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF).
The SoutH2 Corridor is a hydrogen pipeline corridor currently being developed by the European transmission system operators (TSO) Snam (Italy), TAG and GCA (Austria) and bayernets (Germany). It is comprised of approximately 3,300 km of pipelines and several hundred MW of compression capacity, expected to become hydrogen- dedicated assets by 2030.
The development of the SoutH2 Corridor, which is part of the European Hydrogen Backbone, will guarantee security of supply and is crucial for the development of an interconnected and diversified hydrogen backbone in Southern and Central Europe. With a hydrogen import capacity of 4 Mtpa from North Africa, the corridor could deliver more than 40% of the overall import target set by the REPowerEU Plan.
The initiative is centred around the utilisation of existing repurposed midstream infrastructure to transport hydrogen, with the inclusion of some new dedicated infrastructure where necessary. A high proportion of repurposed pipelines (>70%) will enable cost effective transportation, whilst access to favourable renewable hydrogen production locations (wind and solar) in the southern mediterranean region (Southern Italy, Tunisia and Algeria) will enable competitive production.
Partners have collected signed letters of support from renewable hydrogen producers for several megatonnes. The corridor also gained strong support from offtakers and storage operators along the whole route, particularly from the hard-to-abate clusters of Italy (e.g. Augusta, Taranto and northern Italy), Austria (e.g. Styria, Vienna and Linz) and Germany (e.g. Burghausen and Ingolstadt).
As evidence of the corridor's significant contribution to the EU's supply security and decarbonization goals, the Energy Ministries of Italy, Austria, and Germany have all signed a trilateral letter expressing political support.
Further information on the initiative can be found at www.south2corridor.net/