According to business associations, Europe cannot afford to wait any longer for regulations governing the generation of green hydrogen.
The lobbying organizations Renewable Hydrogen Coalition and Hydrogen Europe pleaded with the EU to “as soon as feasible” accept the most recent recommendations for hydrogen development.
They said in an open letter, “If Europe does not want to lose global leadership in one of the fundamental solutions of the 21st century, reducing regulatory uncertainty now for renewable hydrogen is crucial.”
The renewable hydrogen sector cannot afford to wait for production regulations or deal with a patchwork of national regulations resulting from the implementation of RED (the renewable energy directive), which would impede international commerce and deter investment.
The regulation establishes standard goals for the share of renewable energy in the EU’s energy consumption by 2030, which is presently set at 45%.
Wake-up call
The organizations referred to Europe’s energy crisis, which includes the increasing energy prices brought on by Russia’s conflict in Ukraine, as a “wake-up call” to enhance the capacity of renewable energy sources, particularly to meet an anticipated rise in demand for green hydrogen production.
Electrolyzers are generally used to make green hydrogen from surplus renewable energy.
They admonished that “if off-takers cannot claim their hydrogen as fully renewable,'” there would be no investment.
According to proposed EU “additionality” standards, the European Commission wants the production of hydrogen and associated renewable energy to be correlated every hour starting in 2027.
The request in the letter was to prolong the transitional period until 2028 “to account for the lengthy approval procedures of renewable projects.”
They recommended a monthly temporal correlation for all initiatives. According to them, “any limitation based on public aid supplied is unreasonable and unethical,” and “to assure their economic viability and for the market to ramp up swiftly,” support was required for the majority of initiatives.
For the sake of geographic correlation, bid zones within a nation should be treated as a single zone, they said.
