
RWE says EU rule proposals would slow green hydrogen transition
May 26, 2022The German multinational energy company says the rules would work against their intended purpose.
RWE AG (ETR stock symbol RWE) recently spoke out against the European Union’s proposed new rules, saying that they would stand in the way of green hydrogen development.
The rules are meant to accelerate the EU’s energy transition while decreasing reliance on Russian imports.
According to RWE, despite the intentions of the proposed rules for accelerating the bloc’s energy decarbonization transition and reduction of Russian import reliance, the outcome would be to stand in the way of green hydrogen development.
The German utility company said that the proposed EU plan for H2 production “massively counteracts these ambitious goals.”
The European Union’s proposal is that by 2026, the only electricity permitted will be that generated in unsubsidized, newly built solar and wind plants that will power renewable H2, said the RWE statement. The proposal would also require that electrolyzers will be usable only for the production of H2 as long as the solar and wind farms are in operation, added the utility company.
As a result, the full production of green hydrogen will be held back until at least 2030, said RWE.
According to the utility company, by designing the rules this way, it will mean that it won’t be possible to produce renewable H2 in large volumes at any point until 2030. The result will also be that the price of the clean fuel will unnecessarily be notably higher.
Earlier this month, the European Commission unveiled a package of measured under the title of REPowerEU. Those measures are intended to enhance energy efficiency, boost supply diversification, and support renewable energy and targeted investments and reforms.
According to RWE, the means by which REPowerEU intends to achieve those goals will only work against what they seek to achieve.
RWE recently announced its intentions to invest billions into green hydrogen production and the development of a distribution grid for the fuel to ensure it will be within easy reach of German industrial companies.
“RWE will actively work towards this in the upcoming consultation and hopes that political decision-makers rethink the current criteria proposals,” said the announcement from RWE about its Germany renewable energy strategy.
When North America transitioned into hydro electricity, it was only with massive subsidies from Federal, State, and Provincial coffers to build and operate the dams, hydro plants, and electrical distribution systems. Why should the transition to green H2 not be any different?
It appears that some forces try to delay the introduction of H2 powered cars also. Why are 9 out of 10 H2 pumps serving only H2 trucks but not passenger cars?
Fuel cell grade hydrogen supply and infrastructure is needed urgently because it takes time and investment for fleets of vehicles to transition to hydrogen-electric power. As long as hydrogen for vehicles is not widely available this transition to hydrogen power will be very slow, too slow to meet the 2050 deadline. And it takes a long time and money to build electrolysers, so we need to use all sources of fuel cell grade hydrogen now and plan to transition them from grey hydrogen today, to blue hydrogen, to green hydrogen by 2050. A fuel cell does not mind the source of the hydrogen, grey, blue or green providing that it is fuel cell grade or better than 99.99% pure.