A coalition of 33 companies, industry associations, NGOs and think tanks sent an open letter to the European Commission on Wednesday 20 January asking it to prioritise energy efficiency and the integration of renewable energies rather than the use of hydrogen to decarbonise Europe’s building stock.
This call comes one day after a speech by the President of the Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, at the ‘Hydrogen Council’, in which she stated that “Clean hydrogen (...) can power heavy industries, propel our cars, trucks and planes, store seasonal energy”, but also “heat up our homes”.
However, according to the organisations that signed the letter, the direct use of “renewable hydrogen” for heating buildings “is problematic because it comes with many uncertainties”.
These uncertainties, they point out, are linked to the current limitations of producing hydrogen in Europe from renewable electricity in terms of cost and scale.
Furthermore, the Commission should not “overestimate the zero-emission gas potentials, mostly imported from abroad”, the letter insists. For the signatories, these imports run the risk of forcing European taxpayers “to fund unnecessary infrastructures, such as gas pipelines (or their upgrade)”, to the detriment of “immediately applicable heat decarbonisation solutions” which are more sustainable.
Therefore, the signatory organisations advocate reserving renewable hydrogen for sectors that are difficult to decarbonise, such as the chemical and steel industries.
In the case of buildings, the letter calls for priority to be given to energy efficiency options that “immediately deliver real carbon savings”, while accelerating the integration of renewable energies, as set out in the ‘Renovation Wave’ strategy adopted by the Commission on 14 October (see EUROPE 12581/10).
See the letter: https://bit.ly/2LVyS7f (Original version in French by Damien Genicot)