GREECE —A new public grant will support the development of a pilot facility converting agricultural residues into clean fuel in Ierapetra, Crete. Under the BIOH2VAP initiative, European Union and Greek public funds will cover EUR 240k of Swedish hydrogen system developer Metacon's EUR 300k project budget, representing an 80% co-funding rate. The overall program budget totals EUR 1.69 million over a 36-month timeline.
Metacon AB is a Sweden-headquartered technology company specializing in hydrogen production infrastructure, including electrolysis systems and catalytic steam reformers operating on bio-based feedstocks. Its local subsidiary will construct the demonstration unit at an existing biogas plant. The setup utilizes pressure swing adsorption for biogas purification followed by steam reforming to generate renewable hydrogen, while simultaneously evaluating agricultural digestate as a soil conditioner.
Integrating hydrogen production into existing agricultural waste treatment infrastructure offers significant operational efficiency gains for rural energy networks. By utilizing locally available biomass feedstocks, regional facilities can bypass grid constraints, diversify revenue streams, and lower logistics overhead. This approach accelerates circular economy models by turning livestock and crop waste directly into industrial energy carriers.
The pilot serves as a validation platform for scaling decentralized hydrogen technology across Europe's agro-industrial sector. For clean technology developers and energy investors, successful commercialization of on-site reforming provides an alternative to grid-dependent water electrolysis. If demonstrated at scale, the model opens opportunities to retrofit thousands of rural biogas sites, strengthening energy security and supporting broader decarbonization targets.
