“Green” hydrogen even with nuclear power. The EU proposal on energy
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After a long wait, the European Commission has published the proposal for technical criteria to define “green” and renewable hydrogen in the EU. Hydrogen can be defined as green if produced with renewable electricity, but also with electricity with very low emission intensity, ie with energy mixes with a strong incidence of nuclear power. The criteria are needed for counting Member States’ renewable energy targets.
It took the European Commission more than seven months to find a balance between the requests of countries such as France to see nuclear hydrogen recognized, and Germany, which is against it. The tension manifested itself on February 7, when the rapporteur of the European Parliament on the new renewable energy directive, the popular German Markus Pieper, blocked the legislative process of the proposal until the technical criteria were available. The EU aims to reach 10 million tonnes of domestic renewable hydrogen production and 10 million tonnes of imported renewable hydrogen by 2030, as set out in the REPowerEu plan.
The acts adopted today will be forwarded to the European Parliament and the Council, who have two months to examine them and accept or reject them. At the request of either institution, the examination period may be extended by two months. The European Parliament and the Council cannot amend acts submitted to them. The overall aim of the acts is to provide investors with regulatory certainty. Initially negligible, electricity demand for hydrogen production will increase around 2030 with the mass deployment of large-scale electrolysers.
The Commission estimates that the need to achieve the objective is approximately 500 TWh of electricity from renewable sources. The delegated act provides several ways for producers to demonstrate that the electricity from renewable sources used for the production of hydrogen complies with the additionality rules. It also includes criteria to ensure that renewable hydrogen is produced only when and where a sufficient amount of local renewable energy is available (the so-called temporal and geographical correlation). A transitional phase is envisaged for the introduction of the “additionality” obligations ” for hydrogen-related projects that will go online by 1 January 2028.
The transition phase corresponds to the period in which electrolysers will be upgraded and brought to market. Hydrogen producers will be able to combine hydrogen production with the renewables they have contracted for by linking them on a monthly basis until 1 January 2030. However, Member States will be able to introduce stricter rules on time correlation from 1 July 2027. The obligations relating to the production of renewable hydrogen will apply to both EU producers and third-country producers who intend to export renewable hydrogen to the EU that counts towards the achievement of the EU’s renewable energy targets.
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