The repurposing and reuse of parts of the current natural gas infrastructure for the transport of hydrogen in the European Union should be assessed on a case-by-case basis through cost-benefit analyses (CBAs), say the Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER) and the Council of European Energy Regulators (CEER) in a set of recommendations to the European Commission published on Tuesday 9 February.
As the Commission aims to make the EU the world leader in “clean” hydrogen (see EUROPE 12523/1), many questions remain on the development of the infrastructure necessary for the establishment of a European hydrogen economy.
“There will be a need for a balanced consideration of constructing new pipelines for the transport of hydrogen versus the repurposing of (parts of the) existing gas infrastructure which might become obsolete in the future”, the regulators stressed.
To this end, they call for a “significantly improved” CBA methodology to be put in place and submitted to ACER for approval in order to decide whether or not to decommission an asset, taking into account its benefits as a gas infrastructure as well as its reallocation for hydrogen transport.
Noting that reusing existing pipelines could avoid decommissioning costs and “may have the benefit of being quicker and cheaper than building new hydrogen pipelines”, the regulators point out that this improved CBA methodology could be developed in the context of the revision of the EU Regulation (347/2013) on Trans-European Energy Networks (TEN-E).
Among their other recommendations, ACER and CEER suggest in particular to consider “a gradual approach of the regulation of hydrogen networks according to the development of the hydrogen sector, including the needs in terms of transport infrastructures.
They also call for the application of “a dynamic regulatory approach based on periodic market monitoring”, itself based on indicators agreed at EU level and implemented at national level by the national regulatory authorities, in order to combat, in particular, the risk of abuse of dominant position by owners of hydrogen networks.
Another recommendation from the regulators is to provide temporary exemptions from future regulation for existing and new private hydrogen networks developed as business-to-business networks.
In addition, both organisations call on the Commission to clarify, from the outset, the general principles for the future European regulation of hydrogen infrastructure in order to provide potential investors with sufficient predictability regarding the type of network regulation that will be implemented and the market circumstances.
See recommendations: https://bit.ly/3cUmNu6 (Original version in French by Damien Genicot)