Province of Drenthe Give and Take in Diverse Partnerships
Prospects for building strong partnerships that can work together and really learn from each other as they progress is also a strength of Interreg. Johan Scholte, who works for the Province of Drenthe and is the beneficiary lead for Drenthe’s participation in the NSRP HyTrEc2 project, is also responsible for his organisation’s activities in a CEF-funded project TSO2020. ‘What I like about the Interreg programme is that the partnership I’m a part of is not only a tool for achieving our goals – it is also something we benefit from. When we meet to discuss the successes and challenges we’re experiencing as the project advances, for example, there is a lot of back and forth dialogue, and that helps us all progress. We learn from each other – and that adds tremendous value for the individual partners.
Working with SME’s within the project also helps us to get innovation started – innovation that is needed to realize CEF projects. For instance, within the HyTrEc2 project we, as a province, will be testing four hydrogen vehicles. A fastfill hydrogen refueling station (HRS) would be too expensive for only four cars to use. So a local SME, Resato International, is designing and producing a mobile HRS, which they call a Fleet Owner Station. The investment costs for this HRS are about EUR 150.000. And because it is a mobile station you can easily deploy it somewhere else once you have enough hydrogen vehicles to justify the demand. In this way you can roll out the hydrogen infrastructure easily and cost-effectively. And all of this thanks to the help of the Interreg NSR Programme!’
Full blog can be found at https://northseablog.eu/why-apply-to-interreg-with-your-transport-project/