The European Union will offer almost €4.6 billion in grants to cleantech projects with the express aim of reducing its reliance on China. The European Commission invited bids for projects in the electric vehicle battery, hydrogen and other cleantech sectors, promising €4.6 billion in grants. In the battery sector, which is dominated globally by Chinese firms, the bids that pledged “less sourcing of cathodes, anodes and active materials from China will lead to higher scores”, the document said. Grants of €1 billion are available for projects in this sector. “The EU has a significant reliance on this source of supply, which leads to a risk of irreversible dependency that may threaten the EU’s security of supply. Thus, special measures on limiting sourcing from China are justified in this industry,” the Commission’s proposal read.
A further €1.2 billion in grants are available for the production of green hydrogen in Europe, but projects must have a maximum 25% of their electrolysis stacks sourced from China. “The bidder must provide a self-declaration that the resilience requirements on limiting sourcing from China will be met, and explain how it will be done,” the hydrogen proposal said. It further develops an announcement from September that Chinese electrolysers would be restricted in EU tendering processes because of “a significant risk of increased and irreversible dependency of the EU on imports of electrolysers originating in China, which may threaten the EU’s security of supply”. It marks a departure from the EU norm, where efforts to wind down reliance on China rarely name the country itself. This is usually to ensure compliance with World Trade Organization (WTO) rules barring members from discriminating against companies based on their nationality, the South China Morning Post reports.
