On the initiative of Christophe Grudler (Renew Europe, French), a group of 19 MEPs from various EU countries sent a letter to the European Commission on Monday 10 October asking it to take more account of the potential of low-carbon hydrogen and to give priority to domestic hydrogen production.
“We strongly invite the Commission to reconsider the target of 10 million tonnes of renewable hydrogen imports by 2030”, as this “does not give the right signal to the market”, the MEPs write. This target was set by the Commission in its ‘REPowerEU’ plan presented on 18 May (see EUROPE 12951/3).
According to the signatories of the letter, the EU should first focus on the domestic production of renewable hydrogen, but also low-carbon hydrogen (produced notably with electricity from nuclear power plants), before importing hydrogen from international partners.
While the Parliament has recently adopted sustainability criteria for renewable hydrogen as part of the revision of the EU Renewable Energy Directive (RED II - see EUROPE 13022/7, 13023/29), the 19 MEPs call on the Commission to maintain the original approach by adopting a delegated act.
“The criteria as adopted in the position of the Parliament (...) must not be accepted by the Commission, as there are highly problematic for countless reasons in terms of content and procedure”, the letter says.
See the letter: https://aeur.eu/f/3kd (Original version in French by Damien Genicot)