Intesa Sanpaolo joins the European Commission's Clean Hydrogen Alliance

Intesa Sanpaolo is the first Italian bank admitted to the European Commission’s European Clean Hydrogen Alliance (ECHA).

The European Commission’s European Clean Hydrogen Alliance brings the continent’s most significant industrial and financial players together with the aim to favour the deployment of technologies linked to the production of hydrogen from renewable or low carbon emission sources by 2030.

With the support of the initiatives organised by the Alliance, the European Union intends to assume global leadership of the sector, with the aim of maintaining the commitment to achieving carbon neutrality by 2050, as envisaged by the European Green Deal.

Intesa Sanpaolo has also committed itself to facilitating access to the European Commission's IPCEI (Important Project of Common European Interest) programme paying particular attention to the first of the major projects in the pipeline, dedicated to the clean hydrogen supply chain.

Why choose Hydrogen as an energy source

Hydrogen is a climate-friendly gas because it does not contain carbon and, if used to produce energy, it does not emit CO2.

Hydrogen is also an energy carrier, because it can be used to store the energy produced by non-programmable and intermittent renewable sources such as sun and wind, to then be reconverted into energy when necessary, or used as a raw material in various chemical processes for industry and agriculture, or to power heavy transport, and in future even in aviation.

Clean hydrogen also offers a practical solution for decarbonising industrial processes and economic sectors where reducing emissions is both urgent and difficult to achieve.

Currently, the use of hydrogen is held back by the high costs associated with production, but the economies of scale that will derive from industrialisation of processes and the learning economies associated with cumulative production volumes could mean possibly reaching a break-even point as early as 2030.