Storo opens a 1 MW renewable hydrogen plant on former industrial site

An electrolyser rated at one megawatt has been inaugurated in Storo, in Italy’s Trentino region, on the site of the former Paisoli industrial area. The Autonomous Province of Trento announced the opening on 22 October. The facility, called H2 Polytech, is designed to produce renewable hydrogen for nearby industrial users and is part of the region’s effort to develop hydrogen production on previously used industrial land.

The project was developed by Polytec Energy and Polytec SpA. Its production system includes a one-megawatt electrolyser using the company’s “Pen” technology and a hydrogen storage system. Electricity comes from six photovoltaic facilities dedicated to the project and distributed across Storo and neighboring municipalities. The province says hydrogen will be delivered to local industry through a dedicated pipeline; it does not name customers or provide expected annual output.

The technical start and public inauguration happened on different dates. Construction was completed on 25 June 2026, and the electrolyser began operating on 1 July, according to the province. The 22 October event therefore presented a plant already in operation, rather than marking the start of construction or commissioning. The source describes the hydrogen as renewable because the electrolyser is supplied by the project’s photovoltaic installations.

The reported investment exceeds €9.6 million, with about €7.5 million from the European Union’s NextGenerationEU programme. The province places the project under Italy’s National Recovery and Resilience Plan investment for producing hydrogen in disused industrial areas, within Mission 2, “Green Revolution and Ecological Transition.” The provincial administration acted as the delegated implementing body for the Ministry of Environment and Energy Security.

Storo is in the Valle del Chiese, where the former industrial site has been reused for an energy project. At the opening, provincial officials connected H2 Polytech with a hydrogen-valley plan in Storo and a separate initiative in Rovereto. That policy context is broader than this plant: the release gives no schedule, capacity or funding details for a connected valley network, and describes the Storo pipeline only as serving local industry.

The design links renewable electricity, electrolysis, storage and industrial delivery in one local chain. This could matter to industrial users seeking hydrogen, but the announcement does not quantify output, renewable power generation, avoided emissions, operating costs or customer demand. Those outcomes will depend on actual operating volumes and the electricity supplied over time.

The province’s account establishes several milestones: the site was an unused industrial area, construction ended in June, the electrolyser started in July and the plant was inaugurated in October. The disclosed figures are the one-megawatt electrolyser rating, investment above €9.6 million and approximately €7.5 million in EU funding. No annual tonnage or customer contracts are stated, so future scale cannot be inferred from the rating alone.

H2 Polytech is one project under the PNRR investment for hydrogen production on disused industrial sites, which links national recovery funding with local industrial redevelopment. The immediate next step in Storo is to operate the plant and deliver hydrogen to local businesses through the dedicated pipeline described by the province. The announcement does not say when deliveries will begin or give a utilization target.