Currently, the vast majority of Member States’ National Development Plans (NDPs) for the gas network do not include the development of hydrogen, according to a new report from the Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER), published on Monday 21 December.
This report assesses the consistency of the most recent European NDPs with the Ten-Year Network Development Plans (TYNDPs), but also tries to determine whether aspects of energy transition are covered in the gas NDPs.
However, ACER notes that, of the 27 current NDPs, 24 are gas-specific, which “does not appear to provide evidence of a move towards more integrated electricity and gas planning”. Thus, only the Danish plan and the Spanish plan dating from 2008 (now obsolete) can be described as cross-sectoral, i.e. covering both gas and electricity transport infrastructure.
Of the 24 gas-specific plans, only four include hydrogen-related developments, while hydrogen is “expected to be of significant importance given the need to decarbonise or reduce the carbon footprint of hard-to-reduce sectors, such as heavy industry and heavy duty transport”, the document further stresses.
ACER therefore expects hydrogen to be included in more NDPs in the future.
See the report: https://bit.ly/2Ja5jxB (Original version in French by Damien Genicot)