EU to publish H2 bank pilot results on 30 April
The European Commission will publish the results of its €800mn hydrogen bank pilot auction on 30 April, EU Innovation Fund policy officer Johanna Schiele said today.
The commission will release a wide range of information about the successful bids, expected levelised costs of hydrogen production and the intended origin of electrolysers used in the projects, Schiele told the Reuters Hydrogen 2024 conference in Amsterdam.
The ceiling price of €4.50/kg for bids submitted in the auction "was more than sufficient", she said, suggesting that successful bids may have stayed well below this threshold.
Through the mechanism, the commission will award 10-year production subsidies to the renewable hydrogen projects that submitted the lowest bids in the auction. Bids closed in early February and the commission previously said that applications were submitted for 132 projects in 17 different countries, amounting to 8.5GW electrolyser capacity that could produce some 880,000 t/yr of renewable hydrogen. But only a fraction of these will likely win subsidies in this round.
The commission is confident that successful projects will be built, Schiele said. Developers had to submit a completion bond for 4pc of the subsidy value which they will lose if they do not finish their projects. Plants have to be built within five years.
Schiele insisted that the commission is happy with the level of interest in the auction and the design it chose. The UK opted for a different path with a contracts-for-difference (CfD) mechanism that involved negotiations between the government and the developers to agree on subsidy levels, but entering into negotiations would have been a more complex and potentially more costly approach, Schiele said. Subsidy levels increased during the UK's negotiation process and could eventually amount to around £12/kg (€14/kg), partly depending on the development of natural gas prices, she added.
The EU may yet switch to a CfD approach at a later stage when the industry matures, Schiele said .
The UK government argued that its mechanism provides greater investment certainty and could unlock a pipeline of subsequent projects.
Round two
The commission expects to launch a second, larger hydrogen bank auction later this year, at around the same time as the pilot auction last year, Schiele said.
The bidding window for the pilot auction opened in December 2023 and bids closed in February.
The second auction will have a budget of around €2.2bn and will take learnings from the first round into account. A launch towards the end of the year would mark a significant delay from previous plans. Commission president Ursula von der Leyen had said that the second round could take place in spring 2024.
Meanwhile, Belgium is considering putting forward some of its own funds to use the hydrogen bank's "auction-as-a-service" mechanism in support of domestic renewable hydrogen projects, the Renewable Hydrogen Coalition's impact director Francois Paquet said at the Amsterdam conference.
Germany used that option for the pilot auction, putting in €350mn to subsidise the most competitive German projects that miss out on support in the EU-wide part of the auction. And Austria has already announced plans to top up the second round with €400mn to support domestic projects.
For Belgium, the hydrogen bank could provide a route for pushing projects forward, many of which have fallen behind schedule. The Renewable Hydrogen Coalition is trying to convince more governments across the EU to make use of the auction-as-a-service mechanism, Paquet said.
It is intended to avoid market fragmentation caused by EU countries using different subsidy mechanisms. France, Denmark, the Netherlands and Italy have organised or announced mechanisms for subsidising production projects outside of the hydrogen bank scheme.
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Von der Leyen faces new Green Deal challenges
Von der Leyen faces new Green Deal challenges
The president promises a ‘clean industrial deal', but will need to make compromises over climate policy, writes Dafydd ab Iago Brussels, 19 July (Argus) — Ursula von der Leyen's re-election by the European Parliament as president of the European Commission on 18 July promises to see a doubling down on climate and energy policy, with her 2024-29 mandate stipulating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions cuts of at least 90pc by 2040 compared with 1990. "I have not forgotten how [Russian president Vladimir] Putin blackmailed us by cutting us off from Russian fossil fuels. We invested massively in homegrown cheap renewables and this enabled us to break free from dirty Russian fossil fuels," von der Leyen says, promising to end the "era of dependency on Russian fossil fuels". She has not given an end date for this, nor specified if this includes a commitment to ending Russian LNG imports. Von der Leyen went on to detail political guidelines for 2024-29. She has pledged to propose a "clean industrial deal" in the first 100 days of her new mandate, albeit without giving concrete figures about how much investment this would channel to infrastructure and industry, particularly for energy-intensive sectors. The clean industrial deal will help bring down energy bills, she says. Von der Leyen told parliament that the commission would propose legislation, under the European Climate Law, establishing a 90pc emissions-reduction target for 2040. Her political guidelines also call for scaling up and prioritising investment in clean technologies, including grid infrastructure, storage capacity, transport for captured CO2, energy efficiency, power digitalisation and a hydrogen network. She plans to extend aggregate demand mechanisms beyond gas to include hydrogen and critical raw materials, and notes the dangers of dependencies and fraying supply chains — from Putin's energy blackmail to China's monopoly on battery and chip raw materials. Majority report Passing the necessary legislation to implement her stated policies will now require approval from EU states and parliament. Unless amplified by Germany's election next year, election victories by far-right parties in France and elsewhere appear not to threaten EU state majorities for specific legislation. Parliament's political centre-left S&D and liberal Renew groups, as well as von der Leyen's own centre-right European People's Party (EPP), have elaborated key policy requests. These broadly call for the continuation of the European Green Deal — a set of legislation and policy measures aimed at 55pc GHG emissions reductions by 2030 compared with 1990. A symbolic issue for von der Leyen to decide on — or compromise on — is that of internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles. EPP wants to stick to technological neutrality and revise the current mandate for sales of new ICE cars to be phased out by 2035, if they cannot run exclusively on carbon-neutral fuels. The EPP wants an e-fuel, biofuel and low-carbon fuel strategy. Von der Leyen's guidelines reflect the need to gain support from centre-right, centre-left and greens. She says the 2035 climate neutrality target for new cars creates investor and manufacturer "predictability" but requires a "technology-neutral approach, in which e-fuels have a role to play". She has not mentioned carbon-neutral biofuels. It will be impossible for von der Leyen to satisfy all demands in her second mandate. This includes policy requests put forward by the EPP, ranging from a "pragmatic" definition of low-carbon hydrogen and market rules for carbon capture and storage, to postponing the EU's deforestation regulation. EU member states are expected to propose their candidates for commissioners in August, including for energy, climate and trade policy, with von der Leyen's new commission subject to a final vote in parliament in late October. Send comments and request more information at feedback@argusmedia.com Copyright © 2024. Argus Media group . All rights reserved.
Trump vows to target 'green' spending, EV rules
Trump vows to target 'green' spending, EV rules
Washington, 19 July (Argus) — Former president Donald Trump promised to redirect US green energy spending to other projects, throw out electric vehicle (EV) rules and increase drilling, in a speech Thursday night formally accepting the Republican presidential nomination. Trump's acceptance speech, delivered at the Republican National Convention, offered the clearest hints yet at his potential plans for dismantling the Inflation Reduction Act and the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law. Without explicitly naming the two laws, Trump said he would claw back unspent funds for the "Green New Scam," a shorthand he has used in the past to criticize spending on wind, solar, EVs, energy infrastructure and climate resilience. "All of the trillions of dollars that are sitting there not yet spent, we will redirect that money for important projects like roads, bridges, dams, and we will not allow it to be spent on the meaningless Green New Scam ideas," Trump said during the final night of the convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Trump and his campaign have yet to clearly detail their plans for the two laws, which collectively provide hundreds of billions of dollars worth of federal tax credits and direct spending for renewable energy, EVs, clean hydrogen, carbon capture, sustainable aviation fuel, biofuels, nuclear and advanced manufacturing. Repealing those programs outright could be politically difficult because a majority of spending from the two laws have flowed to districts represented by Republican lawmakers. The speech was Trump's first public remarks since he was grazed by a bullet in an assassination attempt on 13 July. Trump used the shooting to call for the country to unite, but he repeatedly slipped back into the divisive rhetoric of his campaign and his grievances against President Joe Biden, who he claimed was the worst president in US history. Trump vowed to "end the electric vehicle mandate" on the first day of his administration, in an apparent reference to tailpipe rules that are expected to result in about 54pc of new cars and trucks sales being battery-only EVs by model year 2032. Trump also said that unless automakers put their manufacturing facilities in the US, he would put tariffs of 100-200pc on imported vehicles. To tackle inflation, Trump said he would bring down interest rates, which are controlled by the US Federal Reserve, an agency that historically acts independently from the White House. Trump also said he would bring down prices for energy through a policy of "drill, baby, drill" and cutting regulations. Trump also vowed to pursue tax cuts, tariffs and the "largest deportation in history," all of which independent economists say would add to inflation. The Republican convention unfolded as Biden, who is isolating after testing positive for Covid-19, faces a growing chorus of top Democratic lawmakers pressuring him to drop out of the presidential race. Democrats plan to select their presidential nominee during an early virtual roll-call vote or at the Democratic National Convention on 19-22 August. By Chris Knigh t Send comments and request more information at feedback@argusmedia.com Copyright © 2024. Argus Media group . All rights reserved.
Czechia expects shift to renewable H2 imports from 2030
Czechia expects shift to renewable H2 imports from 2030
Hamburg, 18 July (Argus) — The Czech Republic wants to have 400MW electrolysis capacity installed by 2030, but does not expect major additions afterwards as renewable hydrogen demand could then be more cost-effectively met by imports, based on an update of the country's national hydrogen strategy. The country will need around 21,600 t/yr of renewable hydrogen, including as derivatives, by 2030 to meet EU targets in the revised renewable energy directive (RED III), according to the strategy. Member states have to ensure that 42pc of all hydrogen used in industry is renewable and that renewable hydrogen and derivatives make up 1pc of all transport fuels, based on RED III. In order to reach the required renewable hydrogen supply, 400MW of domestic electrolysis capacity should be installed based on an expected utilisation of 30pc, the government said. Prague wants to have at least 160MW of capacity installed by the end of 2027 as this capacity would then be exempt from the EU's additionality rules , it said. Under EU rules, electrolysis plants that come on line after December 2027 would have to be powered by renewable assets that were commissioned not more than 36 months earlier. This is intended to avoid "cannibalisation" of existing renewable power for hydrogen production. Plants that come on line earlier would only have to adhere to the additionality rules from 2038 onwards. Avoiding these initially could reduce the cost of renewable hydrogen production as plants could then draw on power from existing renewables assets, the government said. Prague's updated plan also foresees that the country could by 2030 possibly make 20,000 t/yr of low-carbon hydrogen — such as via electrolysis fed by nuclear power or from natural gas with carbon capture and storage or utilisation — to help decarbonisation efforts, even though this does not count towards the EU targets. Still, the combined renewable and low-carbon hydrogen production of just over 40,000 t/yr by 2030 is much lower than the 100,000 t/yr planned in the country's original strategy from 2021, which had been based more broadly on industry expectations rather than specific policy requirements. Required infrastructure for hydrogen pipeline imports will not become available this decade, necessitating the focus on domestic production, the strategy suggests. But beyond 2030, the Czech Republic is betting on renewable hydrogen pipeline imports from other parts of Europe or even further afield. The strategy does not outline further additions to domestic production capacity in the 2030s as imports will be cheaper then, according to the government. Prague expects that imported renewable hydrogen could be available at around €4/kg "at the exit of the transport system" in the early 2030s, while domestic production might still cost as much as €8/kg, even with subsidies. In order to ensure stable supply via imports, the government wants to implement facilitating measures, such as a conversion of gas pipelines, as soon as possible. According to the strategy, renewable hydrogen could be imported directly via pipeline from the Balkans and Turkey, the Baltic Sea and Scandinavia, North Africa and possibly from Ukraine. But while the Czech Republic is landlocked, it could also receive hydrogen that is delivered to European ports from overseas, the government said. Prague estimates that combined demand for renewable and low-carbon hydrogen could reach 1mn t/yr by 2040. The strategy sets out a range of measures that should be explored to support the sector, including funding for domestic production in the coming years. This would primarily come from the EU Modernisation Fund and could involve measures such as tax incentives for production and consumption. By Stefan Krumpelmann Send comments and request more information at feedback@argusmedia.com Copyright © 2024. Argus Media group . All rights reserved.
EU’s von der Leyen re-elected as Commission president
EU’s von der Leyen re-elected as Commission president
Brussels, 18 July (Argus) — The European Parliament today approved Ursula von der Leyen's re-election as president of the European Commission. Nominated by EU states in June, von der Leyen received 401 votes, by secret ballot, from parliament's 720 newly elected members. Von der Leyen called for continuing climate and energy policy in her 2024-29 mandate to achieve greenhouse gas (GHG) cuts of at least 90pc by 2040 from 1990 levels. "I have not forgotten how [Russian president Vladimir] Putin blackmailed us by cutting us off from Russian fossil fuels. We invested massively in homegrown cheap renewables. And this enabled us to break free from dirty Russian fossil fuels," said von der Leyen, promising to end the "era of dependency on Russian fossil fuels". She did not give an end date for this, nor did she specify if this includes a commitment to end Russian LNG imports. Von der Leyen went on to detail political guidelines for 2024-29. In the first 100 days of her new mandate, she pledged to propose a "clean industrial deal", albeit without giving concrete figures about how much investment this would channel to infrastructure and industry, particularly for energy-intensive sectors. The clean industrial deal will help bring down energy bills, she said. Von der Leyen told parliament the commission would propose legislation, under the European Climate Law, establishing a 90pc emission-reduction target for 2040. Her political guidelines also call for scaling up and prioritising clean-tech investment, including in grid infrastructure, storage capacity, transport infrastructure for captured CO2, energy efficiency, power digitalization, and deployment of a hydrogen network. She will also extend aggregate demand mechanisms beyond gas to include hydrogen and critical raw materials. Her political guidelines note the dangers of dependencies or fraying supply chains, from Putin's "energy blackmail" or China's monopoly on battery and chip raw materials. Majority report Passing the necessary legislation to implement her stated policies will now require approval from EU states and from parliament. Unless amplified by Germany's election next year, election victories by far-right parties in France and elsewhere appear not to threaten EU state majorities for specific legislation. Parliament's political centre-left S&D and liberal Renew groups, as well as von der Leyen's own centre-right EPP, have elaborated key policy requests . These broadly call for the continuation of von der Leyen's Green Deal, the set of legislation and policy measures aimed at 55pc GHG emission reduction by 2030, compared with 1990 levels. A symbolic issue for von der Leyen to decide, or compromise on, is the internal combustion engine (ICE). Her EPP group wants to stick to technological neutrality and to revise the phase-out, by 2035, of new ICE cars if they cannot run exclusively on carbon-neutral fuels. The EPP wants an EU e-fuel, biofuel, and low-carbon fuel strategy. Von der Leyen's guidelines reflect the need to gain support from centre-right, centre-left, and greens. For the ICE phase-out, she said the 2035 climate neutrality target for new cars creates investor and manufacturer "predictability" but requires a "technology-neutral approach, in which e-fuels have a role to play." She made no mention of carbon-neutral biofuels. It will be impossible for von der Leyen to satisfy all demands in her second mandate. That includes policy asks put forward by the EPP, ranging from a "pragmatic" definition of low-carbon hydrogen, market rules for carbon capture and storage, postponing the EU's deforestation regulation, to catering more for farmers, even by scrapping EU wildlife protection for wolves and bears. EU member states are expected to propose their candidates for commissioners in August, including those responsible for energy, climate, and trade policies. When parliament has held hearings for candidates in late October, von der Leyen's new commission would then be subject to a final vote. By Dafydd ab Iago Send comments and request more information at feedback@argusmedia.com Copyright © 2024. Argus Media group . All rights reserved.
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