Ardian, a leading private investment house, via its infrastructure business, and FiveT Hydrogen, a clean-hydrogen enabling investment platform, are partnering to create Hy24, an equally owned joint venture. Hy24 will become the world’s largest investment platform focused on clean hydrogen infrastructure, designed to invest in projects that are critical to global decarbonization.

Hy24 is targeting €1.5 billion for its first fund, making the platform the industry’s largest clean hydrogen infrastructure manager. Of this, €800 million has already been committed by a leading group of industrial and financial investors active in clean hydrogen. The fund is the result of distinct initiatives from two groups of investors:

• Air Liquide, TotalEnergies and VINCI, all fully committed to low carbon and renewable hydrogen development, each of which has pledged to invest €100 million each as anchor investors.

• Plug Power, Chart Industries and Baker Hughes together (as former cornerstone investors in FiveT Hydrogen), who are also joining as anchor investors.

LOTTE Chemical, a large Asian industrial Group, also confirmed its intention to join as an anchor investor, and so will AXA, a major institutional investor. Other large international industrial players, all strongly committed to carbon neutrality, also intend to join the initiative. These include: Groupe ADP, Ballard, EDF and Schaeffler. More are expected soon.

The international tender process to select Hy24 and to engage industrial investors was arranged by Société Générale.

Hy24 plans to bring together additional international institutional investors and industrial companies to provide scale and investing capability for hydrogen projects around the world.

Hy24 combines Ardian’s world-class infrastructure investment expertise and asset management capabilities with FiveT Hydrogen’s extensive access to and experience with the hydrogen value chain. The combination will create the largest and most credible partner to energy giants and investors that are seeking a role in accelerating the build-out of hydrogen infrastructure. It meets the enormous demand from governments, corporations, and investors to invest in hydrogen to meet the world’s climate goals. Recent analysis indicates that up to $100 trillion in hydrogen investments will be required to meet net zero goals by 2050.

Hy24’s first fund will be set up and managed as an impact fund with the aim to reduce global carbon emissions, in accordance with Article 9 of the SFDR (Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation). (An Article 9 Fund under SFDR is defined as “a Fund that has sustainable investment as its objective or a reduction in carbon emissions as its objective.”)

It will scale proven technologies towards mature infrastructure assets generating predictable cash flows, providing investors with access to a new asset class that has the potential to follow the same pace of growth as renewables. The portfolio will be diversified across geographies (Europe, Americas and Asia) and value chains, from upstream projects like green hydrogen production, to downstream projects like captive fleet and refueling stations. The value-creation opportunity is significant: job creation and decarbonization, especially in hard-to-abate sectors.