Members of the European Parliament’s Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (ENVI) broadly agreed on the need for a clearer definition of the different forms of hydrogen on Tuesday 17 November, when Bentele Hildegard (EPP, Germany) presented her draft opinion on the European Commission’s recently adopted hydrogen strategy (see EUROPE 12523/1).
Overall, MEPs therefore welcomed Ms Hildegard’s proposal that the Commission should present “a comprehensive terminology and criteria for the certification of renewable and low-carbon hydrogen, since this constitutes the basis for any future investments”.
Tiemo Wölken (S&D, Germany) notably called for a label indicating clearly when it is a question of “green” hydrogen and “blue” hydrogen, while believing that the hydrogen produced from electricity from coal or nuclear power plants could not be a solution.
Joëlle Mélin (ID, France), on the other hand, called for the hydrogen produced from nuclear power to be considered “clean hydrogen”, since solar and wind power will not be sufficient, she said, to produce enough renewable hydrogen.
For his part, Martin Hojsík (Renew Europe, Slovak) insisted on placing the emphasis, “from the start”, on 100% renewable hydrogen, while Alexandr Vondra (ECR, Czech Republic) called for not excluding certain forms of hydrogen, especially those produced from natural gas.
In addition, Manuel Bompard (GUE/NGL, France) and Jutta Paulus (Greens/EFA, Germany) criticised Ms Hildegard’s proposal to use hydrogen for heating buildings, on the grounds that more suitable and cheaper alternatives exist.
Agreeing with them, Paula Abreu Marques, Head of Unit in the Commission’s Directorate-General for Energy (DG ENER), mentioned energy efficiency, electrification and the direct use of renewable heat as preferred decarbonation options for buildings.
Once amended and adopted, the draft opinion will be forwarded to Parliament’s Committee on Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE), which is responsible for the subject (see EUROPE 12601/8).
See the draft opinion: https://bit.ly/2UxHPob (Original version in French by Damien Genicot)