Highlighting Renewable Hydrogen: What Is the EU’s Strategy?
There has been a lot of hype surrounding hydrogen lately, and just last month I discussed the approval by the European Commission for a €149m Romanian scheme that supports the production of renewable hydrogen. Here, I also discussed what hydrogen is and what is defined as green hydrogen. For those that need a refresher, hydrogen is fuel that can be produced from domestic resources. According to the US Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, these sources include gas, nuclear power, biomass and renewable sources like wind and solar power. Green hydrogen is made using 100% renewable electricity to split hydrogen from water molecules. Then there’s also grey hydrogen, which is harvested from fossil gas through steam methane reformation, and blue hydrogen, which is grey hydrogen paired with carbon capture to reduce CO2 emissions.
The EU’s strategy for energy system integration
Before we move on to hydrogen, you’ve likely heard of the EU’s energy system integration strategy; but what does this strategy imply? The EU explains that sector integration means linking various energy carriers with each other and the end-use sectors. These energy carriers can include electricity, heat, cold, gas, solid and liquid fuels, which are linked with each other and be linked with end-use sectors, such as buildings, transport or industry.
“Linking sectors will allow the optimisation of the energy system as a whole, rather than decarbonising and making separate efficiency gains in each sector independently,” the EU explains in a statement. “The new EU strategy will involve various existing and emerging technologies, processes and business models, such as ICT and digitalisation, smart grids and meters and flexibility markets.”
Here is an illustration by the EU to explain this strategy:
Source: European Commission
Renewable hydrogen and the EU’s strategy
According to the European Commission (EU), Hydrogen is an important part of their overall strategy for energy system integration. This strategy states that sector integration will “make it easier to optimise and modernise the EU’s energy system as a whole”.
Within their strategy of energy system integration, the EU identified renewable hydrogen as “an important energy carrier to move away from Russia fossil fuel imports”. Enters the Commission’s ‘hydrogen accelerator’ concept, to increase the deployment of renewable hydrogen to contribute to accelerating the decarbonisation of the EU’s energy system. It’s all a lot to process, I know. The focus of these actions, according to the Commission, is to “accelerate the uptake of renewable hydrogen, ammonia and other derivatives in hard-to-decarbonise sectors, such as transport, and in energy-intensive industrial processes”.
The approval of IPCEI Hy2Tech
Earlier this year, this Commission approved “IPCEI Hy2Tech”, the first-ever Important Project of Common European Interest in the hydrogen sector. According to an address delivered by the Commission’s Executive Vice-President Margrethe Vestager, the project aims to develop technologies for the hydrogen value chain to decarbonise industrial processes and mobility. This project involves 35 companies and 41 projects from 15 Member States: Austria, Belgium, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia and Spain.
