Members of the European Parliament’s Committee on Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE) adopted (46 votes in favour, 25 against and 5 abstentions), on Monday 22 March, the draft own-initiative report by Jens Geier (S&D, Germany) on the European Strategy for Hydrogen. In particular, they call for the development of renewable hydrogen as the only type of hydrogen that can contribute to long-term climate neutrality, while “recognising” that there will be other forms of hydrogen, such as low-carbon hydrogen.
In the hope of avoiding lock-in effects and stranded assets, the European Commission should “assess in which cases, for how long and how much low-carbon hydrogen would be needed approximately for decarbonisation purposes until solely renewable hydrogen can play this role”, say the MEPs (see EUROPE 12676/23, 12681/14).
However, the demand of the Greens/EFA and The Left to concentrate EU funds only on investments in renewable hydrogen was rejected.
On the other hand, MEPs voted to reserve the system of guarantees of origin for renewable hydrogen, whereas the EPP and ECR had asked for it to apply to low-carbon hydrogen as well.
In order to clearly distinguish between renewable and low-carbon hydrogen, the report calls for a uniform EU-wide classification of the different types of hydrogen.
MEPs also say that demand for hydrogen should be concentrated on sectors where its use is about to become competitive or which cannot be decarbonised by other technological solutions, namely: industry, aviation, maritime sector and heavy transport.
They also call on the Commission to present a European strategy for clean steel, which should focus on the use of renewable hydrogen.
The report will be put to a vote in the European Parliament plenary of 26 April.
See voting details: https://bit.ly/2QofKkc (Original version in French by Damien Genicot)