The major questions relating to hydrogen regulation in Europe, including those around additionality and what constitutes green hydrogen, could be settled within a year, EU officials have told Hydrogen Insight, which if achieved could end the long period of uncertainty and debate that industry stakeholders say has hamstrung the development of H2 projects in Europe.

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Speaking on the sidelines of European Hydrogen Week in Brussels on Monday, Aleksandra Tomczak, a member of European Commission (EC) vice-president Frans Timmermans’ executive team, told Hydrogen Insight that she hoped that debates over regulatory matters can be consigned to the past within the year.

“I hope that we won’t have to have these discussions anymore because we would already have our directive and regulation on gas and hydrogen and the clear definition of additionality,” she said.

Progress has been slow because some of the EC’s resources have been tied up with emergency interventions in the gas markets as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, she explained.

And it is not just the EC that has been undecided on such matters, Tomczak said, but the hydrogen industry as well.

“Some delay has been accumulated, but I think over the past year the positions of the industry have also refined on these projects,” she said. “I wouldn’t say that a year ago we had a clear position from the industry, and we have just been delaying these decisions without any reason. I think the whole stakeholder community has been reflecting a lot on what is the right way of approaching it. And now we just have to make sure that we finalise this as fast as possible.”

The EU is currently mulling several pieces of hydrogen-related regulation, including the gas decarbonisation and hydrogen package, which regulates key infrastructure such as pipelines, the TEN-E regulation which regulates cross-border transport of energy, and an overhaul to the Renewable Energy Directive II (RED II), which will regulate how green and low carbon hydrogen are defined and produced.

Two delegated acts related to RED II, which would have imposed strict rules on “additionality” as well as a requirement for green hydrogen projects account for their renewable energy use hour by hour, were scrapped in September after fierce lobbying from Hydrogen Europe and others.

In the absence of a delegated act, European producers would have to wait for a framework contained within an overhaul of RED II.

Frustration within Europe’s industry only increased with the introduction of the US Inflation Reduction Act — with its maximum tax credit for green hydrogen of up to $3/kg —which overnight mades the US one of the most favourable locations in the world to produce green H2.

Christmas present

Deputy director general in the EC’s energy unit, Mechthild Wörsdörfer, agreed that hydrogen regulations within the Renewable Energy Directive (RED II) can still be finalised this year. New tripartite meetings between the EU’s parliament, the council and the commission are scheduled for November.

“We already had the first trilogues, we have the next one in two weeks. It depends on the co-legislators, but I think it is feasible. It is the aim of the Czech presidency,” Wörsdörfer told Hydrogen Insight on the sidelines of the Brussels conference on Monday.

But although the key questions might be answered by the EU in the sphere of public debate, the surrounding legislation might take longer to pass: the RED II legislation is expected to take another two and a half years to come into law.

Several stakeholders at the Brussels event called for the EU to clarify key elements such as additionality in RED II and unbundling requirements (regulation to prevent producers monopolising that requires infrastructure owners to separate their production and transport assets).

Pierre Duvieusart, deputy chief executive officer of gas pipeline company GRTgaz, called on the EU to offer up a final gas decarbonisation package by the end 2023, by focusing on the most important items and evolving it from there.

“We need to have a gas and decarbonisation and hydrogen package under our Christmas tree by 2023, but maybe earlier if it’s possible,” he said. “This is critical for the industry.”

But Wörsdörfer said that timeframe would be challenging.

And David Bryson, chief operating officer of Uniper, called for EU legislators to facilitate a “year of action” in 2023 by offering up clarity on additionality and hydrogen definitions.

“Until customers in Europe understand what they can use and what’s renewable and what’s low-carbon they can’t agree on their business case and they can’t sign off on it,” he told the conference audience. “They can’t sign off on suppliers like ourselves and we can’t therefore make the financial decisions that we need to make.”

He added: “If you don’t have an offtaker in the commodity game, you’re not going to get a project off the ground.”