Briefing for Commissioner Dan Jørgensen
MEETING WITH HYDROGEN ASSOCIATIONS
SCENE SETTER
Who
Commission: EVP Teresa Ribera and her team
Participants:
• Hydrogen Europe: Jorgo Chatzimarkakis, CEO
• International Partnership for Hydrogen and Fuel Cells in the Economy
(IPHE):
Executive Director
• Renewable Hydrogen Coalition:
Managing Director
• Hydrogen Council: Ivana Jemelkova, CEO
You wil be accompanied by Cabinet Members Anne-Maud Orlinski and Kamil
Talbi and DG ENER Policy officer
Purpose of Purpose/strategic objective of the meeting: listening to representatives of
the
hydrogen associations regarding the situation and the challenges of the sector.
meeting
What the interlocutor wants: express their views on the hydrogen sector and
likely ask about your position on hydrogen policy.
It is important that you do
not commit at this stage of the mandate.
What we Listen about the challenges of the sector and about how we can support the
want/top
business case for hydrogen through two sessions:
line
- Financing;
messages
- Enabling framework (notably regulatory).
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Speaking points
Divided as per agenda, for ease of use and reference.
A. General introduction
EVP Rivera wil open the meeting with introductory remarks and wil give you the
floor.
Intro words:
• Ful y committed to the clean transition of the EU economy: existential point
for our planet and incredible opportunity for our economy.
• Hydrogen has a
central role to play in this transition. Multiple uses.
• Key pil ar of our strategy to decarbonize the energy system- Notably hard
to abate sector.
• Ambitious legal targets for renewable hydrogen in the EU
• EU legal framework also recognise the importance of low-carbon hydrogen.
What we have done:
• Established an
enabling framework :
o revision of the
Renewable Energy Directive (RED)
o adoption of the
Gas and Hydrogen Package
o comes with a long list of
secondary legislation (delegated and
implementing acts).
•
First continent with such a comprehensive legal framework => visibility for
stakeholders and clear signal for investors
•
Financial support:
o
2 billion EUR under the Hydrogen Bank
o Projects of Common and Mutual Interests (
PCI/PMI) benefiting from
budget of the Connecting Europe Facility:
65 hydrogen-related
projects.
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• Working on establishing a f
ive-year pilot mechanism to bring demand and
supply and support the market development of hydrogen, under the
Hydrogen Bank.
Chal enges:
•
We observe slowdown in the pipeline of projects over the past few
months.
• Major issue flagged by the sector :
costs of financing electrolysers and
producing hydrogen. Need to make sure projects have a viable business
case.
• Insufficient
offtake agreements is problematic and disincentivise
investments
• Uncertainty on supply/demand
trickles down on infrastructures.
Main messages:
o We need to be
ambitious. Need to keep the bar up and build the
European hydrogens sector, important for both our environment and
for our economy.
o We need to be
pragmatic. Limited means and multiple interests of
various market players in the hydrogen as wel as other sectors must
be taken into account.
o We need to
keep the dialogue open. This is just a first discussion,.
Continuing the discussion to make sure that we stay on the right path
going forward.
• Today’s goal: li
sten to you and hear from you how you see the state of
the industry, and
what could help the European hydrogen sector grow.
• Structure this meeting around two main topics:
financing and the e
nabling
regulatory framework.
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o What are the
financing needs of the sector and what could help in
particular to support the business case of hydrogen projects?
o How we can
reinforce the enabling framework for the hydrogen
sector in the EU that is already in place, and support both supply and
demand for hydrogen?
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B. Session 1: supporting the financing of projects
EVP Rivera wil open the session and wil give you the floor for introductory
remarks.
• Financing needs: 2030 goals would
require up to €254 billion in investments.
• Need to
unlock all possible financing options. Eager to listen to your views on
how we can further support the business case for hydrogen projects and these
investments.
• Questions to raise:
o
Hydrogen Bank: we now had a full first round of auctions and
launched the second one,
how do you assess this mechanism and
the way it could be improved?
o
Clean Investment Strategy: My mission letter includes the
preparation of a ful y-fledged Clean Investment Strategy including a
de-risking initiative to unlock private capital and prioritise
investments. Do you have
suggestions on this?
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C. Session 2: reinforcing our framework for hydrogen offtake and demand: What
further instruments, as part of the Clean Industrial Deal, could be considered?
EVP Rivera wil open the session and wil give you the floor for introductory
remarks.
• We have the
most advanced regulatory framework for hydrogen globally =>
gives clarity and
visibility for stakeholders.
• Priority is to ensure its rapid
implementation so Member States have and use
al the tools.
• Secondary legislation: We slosed the public consultation on the
delegated act
on low carbon hydrogen and wil aim at
publishing it as soon as possible.
•
Joint pilot mechanism: We are developing a
joint pilot mechanism for pooling
and matchmaking supply and demand of hydrogen, and support the access to
financing =>wil bring transparency to the market.
• Need to ful y
implement our new Electricity Market Design. Some features
may be of interest for the hydrogen industry (flexibility, storage). Would
welcome your views on this.
•
Questions to raise:
o Do you identify
actions that could support these priorities and that
would smartly bring together visibility and flexibility to support the
business case of clean hydrogen?
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D. Concluding remarks:
• Thanks for your contributions.
• Our goal is to build a
competitive and resilient European hydrogen value
chain and build a frontrunner position.
• Very useful first discussion. We aim at having a regular constructive
dialogue
with the whole hydrogen value chain and market players.
• We wil also hold regular implementation dialogues.
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