Eurogas Position: Towards a Hydrogen Policy Reset in the EU

Read the full Eurogas recommendations here.

The European Union has placed hydrogen at the centre of its decarbonisation strategy, with an expected critical role in decarbonising hard-to-abate sectors, strengthening energy security and supporting industrial competitiveness. However, the development of the European hydrogen market remains far behind expectations, and the regulatory framework governing hydrogen production has become one of the main obstacles to market development.

Against this backdrop, Eurogas calls on the European Commission to make the revision of the EU hydrogen production rules an immediate priority. In the short term, targeted measures should address the most pressing barriers to project development and strengthen investment certainty. These include postponing the additionality and hourly temporal correlation requirements under the RFNBO Delegated Regulation until 2035, alongside grandfathering provisions for early movers.

For low-carbon hydrogen, Eurogas calls for the swift adoption of a Commission Q&A document to clarify outstanding provisions under the Low-Carbon Fuels Delegated Regulation and for the swift accreditation of low-carbon certification schemes.

Short-term relief should be followed by a broader, structural review of the EU production framework for both renewable and low-carbon hydrogen, to improve the workability of the rules, reduce unnecessary barriers to deployment and provide the regulatory flexibility needed to support the scale-up of the RFNBO market.

Against this backdrop, Eurogas recommends:

• Short-term regulatory fixes for RFNBO production
  • Postpone the additionality requirement until 2035
  • Postpone the hourly temporal correlation requirement until 2035
  • Grandfathering provisions for early movers
• Long-term structural revision of the RFNBO framework
• Short-term regulatory fixes for low-carbon hydrogen
• Long-term structural revision of the Low-Carbon Fuels Delegated Regulation

Download the recommendations below.