On 1-2 April 2025, Konstantinos I. Chatzifotis, EU Affairs Manager at Motor Oil and Project Coordinator of the EPHYRA Project, attended the 5th Business Summit – Go Net-Zero Energy in Budapest. As a guest speaker, Mr. Chatzifotis brought insights from EPHYRA to a key international audience of energy leaders, policy makers, and clean tech innovators.

The summit, widely recognized as a premier platform for advancing the net-zero transition, focused on strategic developments across hydrogen, renewables, decarbonisation, and clean energy technologies. It highlighted real-world implementation and cross-sector collaboration as vital drivers in achieving Europe’s climate targets.

Mr. Chatzifotis participated in the high-level panel discussion titled: “Hydrogen, Today or Tomorrow?”, which explored the real-world readiness of hydrogen technologies and the role they can play in the clean energy future. Drawing from EPHYRA project, he shared practical lessons learnt up-to-date and addressed several pressing topics, including:

• Affordability and hydrogen demand in the Central and Eastern European (CEE) region
• The role of supportive regulatory frameworks
• Incentives for hydrogen off-takers and industrial uptake
• Reuse of existing infrastructure to accelerate hydrogen production
• The potential of blue hydrogen as a transition step
• Hydrogen’s potential in energy storage and system balancing

As hydrogen continues to gain momentum as a pillar of decarbonisation, EPHYRA’s participation in such forums demonstrates its leadership in industrial-scale green hydrogen integration. The insights presented reaffirmed strategic importance of innovation initiatives like EPHYRA to both Greece’s and EU’s clean energy future.