A €25 million green hydrogen project in Austria is moving forward with a final investment decision, highlighting how hydrogen is increasingly being positioned as a tool for decarbonizing industrial processes that already rely on hydrogen as a chemical input.
The Bergla project in western Styria, developed by Energie Steiermark, aims to replace fossil derived hydrogen with renewable hydrogen in tungsten production, targeting one of the more technically challenging areas of industrial emissions reduction.
Construction of the 5 MW facility is scheduled to begin in 2026, with operations expected to start in 2027. The project’s first industrial customer will be Wolfram Bergbau und Hütten AG, which plans to use green hydrogen as a reducing agent in the production of tungsten powder from tungsten oxides.
The application represents a different pathway for hydrogen deployment compared with emerging fuel and transport markets. Instead of using hydrogen as an energy carrier, the project focuses on replacing hydrogen already consumed in industrial chemistry, where the molecule is directly involved in production processes.
Wolfram’s operations currently depend on hydrogen for metallurgical reduction processes, and the switch to renewable hydrogen is intended to reduce reliance on fossil based hydrogen. This type of substitution is becoming a central strategy in industrial decarbonization because some manufacturing processes cannot be electrified without major redesigns.
The facility will use renewable electricity from Energie Steiermark’s recently commissioned wind assets in the Deutschlandsberg district. The company has developed a 105 MW wind portfolio in the region, which will supply electricity for hydrogen production through electrolysis.
The hydrogen produced at the plant will be transported through a pipeline to nearby industrial facilities, creating a localized supply model designed to reduce logistics requirements and connect renewable electricity generation directly with industrial demand.
The project is also supported by €28.5 million in Austrian federal funding distributed over ten years. Public support is intended to help overcome the current cost gap between green hydrogen and conventional hydrogen produced from fossil fuels, particularly natural gas based hydrogen.
That cost challenge remains one of the largest barriers to wider industrial hydrogen adoption. Electrolytic hydrogen production requires significant amounts of renewable electricity, and the economics depend heavily on electricity prices, electrolyser utilization rates, infrastructure availability, and long term offtake agreements.
The Bergla project’s structure reflects a growing trend among hydrogen developers: securing industrial customers before investment decisions are finalized. By partnering with Wolfram as an anchor offtaker, Energie Steiermark is reducing market uncertainty and aligning production capacity with a defined industrial use case.
The project is also designed with future expansion in mind. Developers plan to enable potential scaling and integration with Europe’s developing hydrogen infrastructure network. As hydrogen pipeline systems expand, regional production sites could become connected to larger hydrogen corridors, increasing flexibility for suppliers and consumers.
The use of hydrogen in tungsten production follows a broader industrial shift toward replacing fossil derived hydrogen with renewable alternatives. Similar strategies are being explored in sectors such as steelmaking, where direct reduced iron technology uses hydrogen instead of coal based reduction methods.
