EIC Accelerator Winner Solhyd and the Solar Hydrogen Module Race

Conventional water electrolysis, the route the Solhyd project measures itself against in CORDIS, runs on electricity from a separate power source and consumes liquid water. Solhyd, a 2023 spin-off of KU Leuven, puts the splitting step inside a panel that draws water vapour from the air and runs on its own solar cells. The EIC Accelerator selected the company at its October 2025 cut-off for blended finance, and CORDIS records a grant of €2,494,537.53 for a project running from 1 June 2026 to 31 May 2028, signed on 29 May 2026.

The project's stated aim is to industrialise what it calls the world's first solar hydrogen modules, replacing what the objective calls rare and expensive noble metals with earth-abundant materials, and needing no liquid water. Solhyd and the Flemish hydrogen association WaterstofNet describe the award as a €2.5 million grant plus up to €5 million of equity, a split also reported by Hydrogen Central. CORDIS records only the grant; no equity amount or closing date has been published by the EIC Fund, and a search of its public pages found no Solhyd entry.

A panel that splits water vapour

The idea is older than the company. In March 2019 IEEE Spectrum reported that the KU Leuven team said its 1.65 metre prototype converted 15% of incoming sunlight into hydrogen and produced about 250 litres a day averaged over a year, up from 0.1% efficiency a decade earlier. The same report noted that the figures were the team's own, that Bosserez declined to give specifics citing intellectual property, and that no peer-reviewed paper on the prototype was identified. No independent measurement of the 15% figure was found in this research. After a first-generation panel, the team built a set of ten panels with an industrial design by Comate at TRANSfarm in Lovenjoel, per New Mobility News.

KU Leuven's spin-off announcement, carried by Leuven MindGate, describes the mechanism as sunlight splitting water vapour from the air into hydrogen and oxygen through a membrane, in a panel about the size of a solar module. CORDIS lists the project keywords as vapour-fed solar hydrogen production, earth-abundant catalysts and anion exchange membranes. Rongé called it "a necessary complement to electrolysers".

The SM500 module the company now markets is not purely solar. In July 2025 New Mobility News reported, from the company, that about half the energy of the SM500 comes directly from its own solar cells and the rest can be bought from the grid or nearby renewables, and that installation and balance-of-plant costs are about half those of conventional electrolysis. The "4x lower energy costs" line repeated in the EIC coverage is the company's figure; no third-party cost study was found in this research. In May 2025 Rongé was honoured with a World Hydrogen Award at the World Hydrogen Summit in Rotterdam, per WaterstofNet; New Mobility News reported the award as one for the SM500 and placed Rongé in a "future leader" category.

The first park: signed, not yet reported running

On 4 November 2025 Solhyd, Ether Energy, SunBuild and Nippon Gases signed a memorandum of understanding for what they call the world's first solar hydrogen park, near Namur, according to Paperjam and pv magazine. Ether Energy is to own and operate it, SunBuild to build a solar array of about 2 MW with batteries, Solhyd to supply and maintain 50 kW of hydrogen modules, and Nippon Gases to process, store and distribute the hydrogen. The site was to start operating in 2026 for at least five years, with a 2 MW Solhyd installation targeted for 2028, per WaterstofNet.

The sources do not agree on the numbers. pv magazine gives the park's output as up to 250 litres of hydrogen a day at a peak efficiency of 15%, the same daily figure the 2019 reports gave for a single prototype panel; Paperjam describes the modules as rated at 50 kW each, while pv magazine and WaterstofNet describe 50 kW as the whole hydrogen system. Searches of the company's site, WaterstofNet and the trade press on 28 October 2026 found no report that construction has started or that the park is producing hydrogen.

Seed money, narrower losses, rising equity

The spin-off came with a commitment of up to €6 million from Flemish investors, with a first €2 million tranche, reported in December 2023 by New Mobility News and in February 2024 by M&A Belgium. The Belgian Crossroads Bank for Enterprises shows Solhyd BV as active, registered as an employer since 1 December 2023, with the founders' companies as managing directors and investor representatives Lieven Danneels and Frank Zwerts on the board alongside Johan Martens.

The filed accounts, as summarised by Companyweb and Busibee, which agree on the results, equity and debts below, show a loss of €747,789 for the first financial year (February 2023 to December 2024) and €515,486 for 2025. Equity rose from €2,408,249 to €3,392,763 over 2025 despite that loss; Busibee lists a publication on changes to the share capital dated 26 September 2025. Debts fell from €338,988 to €221,912. Neither summary shows a revenue figure. Staff counts differ: Companyweb gives 5.5 full-time equivalents for 2024 and 7.5 for 2025, while Busibee shows 9 without naming the year.

What the EIC project has to show

The award came from the cut-off whose results the EIC announced on 17 February 2026: 61 companies selected from 121 interviewed, with €467 million of proposed funding. The grant started five months before this article, so CORDIS shows no report or deliverable yet; the scorecard below tracks what the objective commits to and what can be checked today.

1. Modules that need no liquid waterPrototypeMechanism described by KU Leuven and CORDIS; no independent test published.
2. No noble metals in the catalystsClaimStated in the CORDIS objective and by the company; the company has not published the module materials.
3. Industrialised productionNot yetCompany says production capacity is limited and asks buyers to reserve slots (New Mobility News).
4. Market entry at commercial scaleAnnounced50 kW park under a memorandum of understanding; not reported running as of 28 October 2026.

Where it fits in EU hydrogen policy

The European Commission states that REPowerEU set the aim of producing 10 million tonnes of renewable hydrogen in the EU and importing 10 million tonnes by 2030, and that the revised Renewable Energy Directive sets binding targets for renewable hydrogen in industry and transport. The project's case for itself, as set out in CORDIS, rests on two points: modules that need no liquid water, which it presents as water conservation, and earth-abundant materials in place of the rare and expensive noble metals it says conventional electrolysis uses. Neither has yet been demonstrated in public at the scale of the 2 MW park the partners target for 2028.

The reporting is based on publicly available sources, listed below.