The Alpine region supplies substantial renewable electricity—primarily from hydropower, and increasingly also from solar and wind. It hosts several hard-to-abate industries (e.g. metallurgical and chemical plants, automative sector, paper mills, cement plants) that will increasingly rely on hydrogen applications to meet their CO₂ emissions targets as set out by Regulation (EU) 2023/959 for the ETS-sector, Effort-Sharing Regulation (ESR) for the non-ETS-sector (Regulation (EU) 2018/842). The Alpine region also serves as a transportation corridor for cross-border hydrogen infrastructure linking southern and northern Europe (H2 backbone).

Numerous pilot projects across the Alpine arc produce green hydrogen and are testing innovative technologies. Several regional and local governments are advancing standalone initiatives or aiming to implement large EU “hydrogen valleys” that integrate production, storage, distribution, and end-use applications.

Due to the importance of regional governments in implementing hydrogen pilots and in managing hydrogen valley projects, transregional collaboration in the Alps will be important to further advance green hydrogen technology.

In this context, a variety of already existing transregional collaboration initiatives, such as EUSALP, the ArgeAlp and regional networks could serve as a promotional motor to deepen collaboration in strategic fields of green hydrogen.