Meeting in plenary, MEPs held an exchange of views on the EU’s hydrogen and energy system integration strategies on Monday 17 May, before voting on Tuesday (amendments) and Wednesday (final vote) on the draft own-initiative reports by Jens Geier (S&D, Germany) and Christophe Grudler (Renew Europe, France) on these two strategies.
While MEPs were relatively unanimous on the need to develop hydrogen and establish a truly integrated European energy system, they once more expressed diverging views on the place to be given to low-carbon hydrogen (produced from natural gas with CO2 capture and storage technologies or using electricity from nuclear power) versus renewable hydrogen (produced by electrolysis of water using electricity from renewable sources).
“The medium and long term objective must of course be renewable hydrogen. But for a transitional period, we also urgently need low-carbon hydrogen”, said Angelika Niebler (Germany) on behalf of the EPP group.
According to Manuel Bompard (The Left, France), on the other hand, a strategy compatible with the EU’s climate objectives “can only be based on the development of green hydrogen”. He also called for prioritising the uses of renewable hydrogen because of its “limited” nature due to the fact that “renewable energy and water [needed for its production] are not infinite resources”.
“Parliament is about to adopt a resolution that favours hydrogen produced from fossil gas and nuclear power”, said Damien Carême (Greens/EFA, France), while denouncing the sums spent by gas lobbies to influence European policy on hydrogen (€58.6 million in one year, according to a report by the NGO Corporate Europe Observatory - https://bit.ly/3wiUtrI ).
While his draft report recognises the role of low-carbon hydrogen, while favouring renewable hydrogen (see EUROPE 12684/6), Jens Geier said: “I am convinced that if we limit hydrogen to that produced from renewable energy and only from the surplus of that energy, we will push back the use of hydrogen technology for many years”.
These differences are reflected in the amendments tabled by the different groups.
While only about ten amendments were proposed for Mr Grudler’s report on the integration of energy systems, more than forty relate to Mr Geier’s report on hydrogen.
For example, Mr Grudler tabled an amendment to “end EU financial support for low-carbon emission hydrogen from fossil fuels by 2030”.
At the time of going to press, the outcome of the vote on the amendments was not yet known. EUROPE will continue to follow this story.
See the draft reports: https://bit.ly/3ynslFK and https://bit.ly/2RrsJm9 (Original version in French by Damien Genicot)