EU policymakers are being urged to streamline permitting of both renewable energy and electrolyser projects.
The Renewable Hydrogen Coalition (RHC) has issued a set of measures, as various stakeholders met at the Renewable Hydrogen Summit, organised by the European group.
The RHC said that while it welcomed the draft Delegated Act proposed by the commission it said that to meet the REPowerEU ambition, first movers should be enabled to ramp up renewable hydrogen supply and their business cases must be secured.
In addition to streamlining permitting of renewables as well as renewable hydrogen installations in the “public and industry’s interest”, the RHC said permitting is crucial to build the necessary additional capacity for renewable hydrogen production.
The RHC also wants to see adoption of the most ambitious binding targets for the uptake of renewable hydrogen and derived e-fuels in hard-to-electrify industry and transport, as proposed by the commission.
“The binding nature of the targets is essential to send strong market signal, unlock existing demand and drive major investments upstream in the value chain,” stated the group.
It also made the case for “fast and simplified access” to support and finance instruments since offtakers still face high costs to shift to clean technologies.
If properly designed and quickly accessible, carbon contracts for difference could have a “huge impact, accelerating uptake by industrial offtakers”, said the RHC.
RHC vice chair and Sunfire CEO Nils Aldag (pictured) said: “Scaling up production capacities in line with the REPowerEU ambition will create a new European industrial champion: electrolysis.
“Building 120GW of electrolysers in the EU in less than eight years calls for unprecedented efforts of manufacturers and unconventional policy instruments.
“Industry and policy makers share a responsibility to ramp up the market with the scale and speed required. We cannot get this wrong. Now is the time for decisive actions.”