On Tuesday 10 October, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and Executive Vice-President, Maroš Šefčovič, held the first in a series of dialogues on the clean transition. This first exchange focused on hydrogen.
“Our objective is simple. We want to take European hydrogen from niche (production) to scale. We want Europe to be the global home of clean hydrogen”, said the President in her introductory speech.
In this context, Mr Šefčovič held talks with representatives from across the hydrogen value chain, from electrolyser manufacturers and hydrogen production to transport infrastructure manufacturers and hydrogen suppliers.
The President recapped current developments, including financial support via NextGenerationEU and REPowerEU for investment in “hydrogen valleys”, hydrogen trains and clean steel plants, as well as the authorisation of €17 billion of State aid for 80 hydrogen-related projects in the EU. She also spoke of the launch of the first Hydrogen Bank auctions (see EUROPE 13240/9), which will take place next month to award €800 million.
“There is 67 GW of electrolysis capacity in the pipeline (...) This is far more than the ambitious target of 40 GW by 2030 that we set ourselves in our hydrogen strategy”, the President was pleased to say. “But our installed capacity is still too low. So we need to build a bridge between ambition and reality. And that’s where today’s dialogue comes in”, she said.
The aim of the discussions was to generate ideas and best practices on how to strengthen the industrial dimension of the ‘European Green Deal’ and accelerate the ecological transition in the hydrogen sector.
In her State of the Union address, Ms von der Leyen also proposed replicating the gas demand pooling mechanism for hydrogen “on a voluntary basis, with the aim of increasing demand, making it more visible and matching it with future hydrogen production”.
This proposal is currently being discussed as part of the interinstitutional negotiations on the revision of the gas package (see EUROPE 13260/5).
A new set of meetings and panels is planned for European Hydrogen Week, from 20 to 24 November. (Original version in French by Pauline Denys)