July 2025 | The Business News Bulletin of Hydrogen in France

For a quick overview of the latest news on the hydrogen economy in France for the past month, watch on YouTube our short video:

Grand Est | GazelEnergie announced that it has signed a €20 million grant agreement with the European Union for its Emil’Hy project. This grant is funded by the Connecting Europe Facility. The Emil’hy project aims to produce renewable, low-carbon hydrogen in Saint-Avold in Moselle from 2028-2029 using 400 MW of electrolysis.

Multilocation |  Lhyfe announced the end of its first citizen financing campaign, having raised €2.5 million. The campaign was launched last May and aimed to finance four Lhyfe renewable hydrogen production sites, including three in France: one site already in operation in Buléon in Morbihan and two sites under construction in Cheylas in Isère and Croixrault in Somme. This crowdfunding follows the announcement of €53 million in debt financing in April for these same hydrogen production sites.

Occitanie | Sertronic has announced the delivery of two storage tanks for Qair‘s Hyd’Occ renewable hydrogen production project in Port-la-Nouvelle, Occitanie.

Britany | Europe Technologies has announced the approval of its ESTEBAM project in Brittany as part of Interreg North-West Europe, a European territorial cooperation programme. This project aims to deploy an energy management system for an agricultural ecosystem. Hydrogen would be produced through the installation of photovoltaic panels. The system will convert renewable electricity into hydrogen until it reaches the maximum capacity needed to power two mussel farming barges in Viviers-sur-Mer.

Grand Est | On the natural hydrogen front, Française de l’Energie (FDE) has begun a consultation phase for its natural hydrogen exploration project in the Grand Est region. The public is invited to give their opinion until 11 August. The company has already applied for an exclusive research permit to the Ministry of Ecological Transition in March 2023.

Multilocation | French companies NaTran and Teréga, together with Spanish operator Enagas, have announced the creation of a joint venture for the BarMar project, which aims to build a hydrogen pipeline linking Marseille to Barcelona. Enagas holds a 50% stake in the company, while NaTran holds 33.3% and Teréga 16.7%.

Multilocation | A joint declaration was signed by the five regions involved in NaTran’s HY-FEN project, namely Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, Occitanie, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, Bourgogne-Franche-Comté and Grand Est. The regions have thus affirmed their support for the 800 km transport infrastructure project linking southern France to Germany. The signing took place during the Journées Hydrogène dans les Territoires event in Lyon.

Scope: Industry: ammonia, methanol, kerosene, steel and other derivatives and chemicals, etc.

Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur | GravitHy has signed a land reservation agreement for its low-carbon steel production project in Fos-sur-Mer. The GravitHy project plans to directly reduce 3 million tonnes of iron ore per year using hydrogen. The project is currently in the consultation phase. Construction work is expected to begin at the end of 2026, with commissioning in 2029.

Grand Est | H2V has entered a partnership with Prodeval to supply biogenic CO2 to the H2V Thionville project. The project aims to produce 150,000 tonnes of e-methanol per year, which would be used as fuel for maritime and aviation applications.

Not located | Verso Energy has signed a memorandum of understanding with Pertamina New & Renewable Energy, Indonesia’s state-owned oil company, to collaborate in the field of synthetic fuels. This memorandum includes a cross-investment clause allowing Pertamina to invest in Verso Energy’s projects in France.

Scope: fuel cell and internal combustion engine for road, railway, maritime, aviation

Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes | HYmpulsion inaugurated a new hydrogen refuelling station in Annecy with a distribution capacity of one tonne per day. This station will supply three hydrogen buses that will join the SIBRA fleet in spring 2026, as well as regional buses converted by GCK Mobility.

Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes | The project developer Arve Hydrogène Mobilité began construction of its station in Vougy in Haute-Savoie with a groundbreaking ceremony. This company is supported by five companies: Atawey, LSBN, Axpo, Crédit Agricole des Savoie and Jean Lain Mobilités. The station is expected to be operational by the end of 2025. On this occasion, Arve Hydrogène Mobilité also signed two partnerships. One with HysetCo to enable its vehicles to use the station and the other with HYmpulsion to integrate the station into its network. During the start-up phase, HYmpulsion will supply renewable hydrogen from the Bessières and Cheylas production sites until the electrolyser at the Vougy site comes into service.

Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur | Hynamics also organised the groundbreaking ceremony for its Cannes Lérins Hydrogen station. Several local and regional political figures attended the ceremony, including David Lisnard, Mayor of Cannes and President of the Cannes Lérins Urban Community, Françoise Bruneteaux, Regional Councillor for the South Region, Charles Ange Ginesy, President of the Alpes-Maritimes Department, and Patrick Amoussou-Adéblé, Secretary General of the Alpes-Maritimes Prefecture. Construction of the station is expected to be completed in December 2025.

Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur | Eiffage Energie Systèmes has completed the construction of hydrogen treatment, compression and distribution units at a station called H2 in Vitrolles. A gen-hy AEM electrolyser will be installed shortly. The station will produce 50 kg of hydrogen per day. It is a private station enabling the Eiffage Energie Systèmes agency to refuel its fleet of commercial vehicles and those of its partners.

Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes | Following the inauguration of the HYmpulsion station in Lyon at the end of June, FillnDrive announced that it had equipped the station with two ‘FillnDrive Ready’ dispensers with a VCID, a tool for measuring the hydrogen delivered by the station with a user interface and an integrated payment system.

Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur | Helion Hydrogen Power has announced the release of its first two fuel cell stacks. These stacks will soon be integrated into Alstom’s hydrogen trains for passenger transport.

Île-de-France | PowiDian Energy has won the tender for the H2 Créteil project to provide project management assistance under the aegis of the semi-public company SIPEnR and Suez.

Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes | Aéroports de Lyon announces a partnership with Toyota to test a hydrogen-powered Hilux to adapt the prototype to the specific requirements of the airport environment.

Scope: power and heat for stationary application (building, industry, etc.)

Occitanie | Eiffage Energie Systèmes deployed an EODev hydrogen generator to power the lighting for a festival in Albi. This generator replaced two traditional 60 kilovolt-ampere diesel generators.

Centre-Val de Loire | Urbasolar announced that it had tested an EODev hydrogen generator from April 2024 to January 2025 as part of a project to build a solar power plant in Amilly. The generator has a power output of 110 kW and converts hydrogen supplied in cylinders and oxygen into renewable electricity.

Nouvelle-Aquitaine | dynaCERT announced the deployment of its HydraGEN technology on a crane at the port of Rochefort-Tonnay-Charentes. This hydrogen technology reduces greenhouse gas emissions from diesel engines. The port authority has also announced the deployment of this system on four other cranes by the end of the year.

Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes | Hyliko has opened an innovation centre dedicated to heavy-duty hydrogen mobility in Saint-Priest, near Lyon. This centre will bring together all R&D and prototyping activities. It will also be used to produce vehicles at a rate of two to three vehicles per month.

Not located | Bureau Veritas has granted approval in principle to French company SECO Marine for its compressed hydrogen storage system. This system is designed to be integrated into a confined space under the deck of ships. It enables fuel cells to be powered by compressed hydrogen gas stored in type 4 tanks.

Not located | Genvia has announced a joint study with Airbus, led by Hinicio, to analyse the performance of a solid oxide electrolyser to produce synthetic fuels using the Methanol-to-Jet process. An initial study had been conducted for the Fischer-Tropsch process.

Not located | The first of three training simulators, based on the Corys platform, has been validated. This simulator incorporates a faithful virtual replica of the fuel cell training bench developed with Hydroxide Technologies. The simulator’s technical validation was carried out as part of Corys’ participation in the Symbio Hydrogen Academy, which aims to roll out training courses on how to operate a fuel cell system.

Not located | In addition, Hynamics, EDF Power Solutions and Corys announced a partnership to develop hydrogen process simulators. Hynamics and EDF will develop an engineering simulator for alkaline electrolyser systems using Corys’ simulation platform. Corys will also develop a PEM electrolyser simulator with the support of Hynamics.

John Cockerill Hydrogen has been appointed by the Belfort Commercial Court to take over McPhy‘s activities, including its electrolyser manufacturing plant in Belfort, following its liquidation.

Khimod announced that it had raised €23 million. This funding will enable Khimod to deploy new industrial demonstrators, increase its production and expand its operations in France and abroad, particularly in the areas of synthetic fuels and e-methanol.

Atawey launched a crowdfunding campaign on 9 July. More than €1.3 million has already been raised. As with the €22 million fundraising announced last month, Atawey aims to expand its commercial presence in Europe to deploy its mobility solutions.