On the evening of Tuesday 8 July, the European Commission presented its long-awaited delegated act on low-carbon hydrogen, including amendments to previous draft documents (see EUROPE 13630/32) in partial response to requests from Member States, MEPs and industry.
Last week, the latest draft delegated act was still being criticised by MEPs, mainly from the EPP and ECR groups (see EUROPE 13673/9), which felt in particular that the measures did not allow for the production of “blue” hydrogen (produced from fossil fuels combined with a CO2 capture system).
To be considered “low-carbon”, hydrogen must reduce greenhouse gas emissions over its entire life cycle by at least 70% compared with the use of fossil fuels. The same threshold applies under the delegated act defining “renewable” hydrogen (see EUROPE 13202/35).
The Hydrogen Europe organisation has acknowledged the “improvements” in the new act resulting from the gas package (see EUROPE 13455/26) compared to previous versions of the text, “in response to strong pressure from industry, the European Parliament and the capitals”.
However, “the slowness in preparing and adopting this act – which is still very strict – is an obstacle to what Europe needs today in a complex geopolitical landscape”, said Hydrogen Europe CEO, Jorgo Chatzimarkakis.
Lower default values for natural gas. Compared with the last copy of the text, the Commission has lowered the default values for CO2 emissions from upstream natural gas production (excluding LNG liquefaction, transport and regasification) from 8.4 to 4.9 gCO2/MJ.
This was a request from industry, which was concerned that it would otherwise have been difficult to achieve the 70% threshold for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. On the contrary, environmental NGOs called for these default values to be raised (see EUROPE 13643/12).
The default values for methane intensity have also been lowered to 0.19 gCO2/MJ for natural gas, compared with 6.6 gCO2/MJ previously. The CAN Europe coalition of environmental organisations considered that the previous value was already “too low”, fearing that producers with high levels of methane leakage would “unfairly benefit” from the default values.
Another request from industry concerned the application of default values for ‘upstream emissions’ specific to a country or region. The Commission has therefore proposed to assess the introduction of such an approach in its impact study, due before 1 July 2028.
“Although it is not as optimal as the project-specific values, it is a step in the right direction”, commented Hydrogen Europe.
Consultation on nuclear PPAs in 2026. For the time being, the act therefore provides four methods for calculating the emissions intensity of electricity used to produce “low-carbon” electrolytic hydrogen, without yet taking into account hydrogen produced using electricity from a PPA (power purchase agreement) with a nuclear power plant.
The Commission has not changed its approach compared to the last text concerning these “low-carbon” PPAs (see EUROPE 13630/32): a consultation on this point will take place in 2026, before the impact assessment in 2028.
The European Parliament and the EU Council have two months to approve or reject the delegated act as it stands.
To see the delegated act: https://aeur.eu/f/hsi (Original version in French by Pauline Denys)