Hydrogen

On 30 May 2022, the European Union (“EU”) adopted the revised Regulation on guidelines for trans-European energy infrastructure (No. 2022/869) (the “TEN-E Regulation 2022”), which replaces the previous rules laid down in Regulation No. 347/2013 (the “TEN-E Regulation 2013”) that aimed to improve security of supply, market integration, competition and sustainability in the energy sector. The TEN-E Regulation 2022 seeks to better support the modernisation of Europe’s cross-border energy infrastructures and the EU Green Deal objectives.

The three most important things you need to know about the TEN-E Regulation 2022:

  • Projects may qualify as Projects of Common Interest (“PCI”) and be selected on an EU list if (i) they fall within the identified priority corridors and (ii) help achieve EU’s overall energy and climate policy objectives in terms of security of supply and decarbonisation. The TEN-E Regulation 2022 updates its priority corridors to address the EU Green Deal objectives, while extending their scope to include projects connecting the EU with third countries, namely Projects of Mutual Interest (“PMI”).
  • PCIs and PMIs on the EU list must be given priority status to ensure rapid administrative and judicial treatment.
  • PCIs and PMIs will be eligible for EU financial assistance. Member States will also be able to grant financial support subject to State aid rules.

Continue Reading The European Union Adopted New Rules for the Trans-European Networks for Energy

Last December, the European Commission published its legislative Package on Hydrogen and Decarbonized Markets (“Package”), which proposes new rules aiming to develop a hydrogen market in the EU. The new rules bring much awaited legal clarity to the concepts and role of blue and green hydrogen within the EU’s energy regulatory framework for the climate transition.

In effect, the Commission’s legislative Package is intended to promote the use of blue hydrogen until at least 2030 provided that it achieves the same decarbonization as green hydrogen (i.e., 70% GHG reduction).  However, the European Parliament and Council may amend both the proposed definition and conditions of blue hydrogen and the proposed regulative incentives during their consideration of the Package and its adoption through the legislative procedure that will now follow.  Moreover, the European Commission will be empowered to develop much of the methodologies implementing the definitions of blue and green hydrogen.  Companies intending to engage in blue and green hydrogen operations in the EU/EEA would be well advised to closely follow these developments.Continue Reading New Definitions for Blue and Green Hydrogen: The European Commission’s Package on Hydrogen and Decarbonized Gas Markets

On the 10th of November 2021, the Scottish Government published its Draft Hydrogen Action Plan (the “Plan”), as a companion document to its December 2020 Hydrogen Policy Statement.

The Plan sets out the Scottish Government’s detailed proposals for the Hydrogen industry in Scotland across the next five years. The aim is for Scotland to have capacity to produce 5 GW of Hydrogen by 2030 and 25 GW of Hydrogen by 2045. This blog sets out the key takeaways from the Plan.Continue Reading The Scottish Government’s Draft Hydrogen Action Plan

In December 2020, the UK PM set out an ambitious 10 Point Plan for a green industrial revolution, one of the key points of which was the production of 5 GW of low carbon hydrogen in the UK by 2030.  The Plan envisaged hydrogen playing a key role in decarbonising energy-intensive industries and heavy transport and replacing natural gas in domestic heating.

On 17 August the UK Government published its Hydrogen Strategy (together with a number of associated Consultations), which lays the foundations for the UK’s future hydrogen economy and sets out how the UK Government will support innovation and stimulate investment in low carbon hydrogen to meet its 5GW target.Continue Reading Hydrogen in The UK

This post is the 17th in our series, “The ABCs of the AJP.”

President Biden’s American Jobs Plan (AJP) sends strong signals in support of carbon capture and sequestration as an important tool to achieve the President’s ambitious decarbonization objectives.
Continue Reading Qualifying Carbon Capture and Storage under 45Q: How Biden’s Infrastructure Plan and Congressional Action May Provide a Realistic Role for CCS in Achieving Net Zero

This post is the ninth in a series, “The ABCs of the AJP.”

Virtually every president since Franklin D. Roosevelt has pursued a national “infrastructure” project of some kind.  From the New Deal and the Federal-Aid Highway Acts, which created today’s interstate highway, to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, the federal government has made significant investments toward a “system of public works,” a standard definition for the word “infrastructure.”  In this way, the AJP is just the latest major infrastructure initiative, even if the proposed amounts for modernizing surface transportation, airports, and waterways are unprecedented.
Continue Reading Infrastructure Reimagined: From Roads and Country to People and Planet

This blog is the eighth in a series, “The ABCs of the AJP.”

The latest Energy Transition technology now attracting massive investment and policy attention is “green hydrogen” produced using renewable energy to separate hydrogen from water that can be used both for bulk energy storage and then used to fuel gas-fired power plants or hard-to-abate sectors such as manufacturing, shipping and long-haul trucking.   President Biden’s American Jobs Plan matches that level of investment and attention by proposing 15 decarbonized hydrogen demonstration projects in distressed communities and by including hydrogen among an additional $15 billion increase in funding for climate R&D priorities.  The AJP also includes an expansion of production tax credits for energy storage, that has led to the introduction of at least one bill — SB 1017 – endorsed by the American Clean Power Association proposing a $3/kg tax credit for green hydrogen.
Continue Reading Hastening the Hydrogen Economy

On April 21, 2021, the European Commission approved “in principle” a Delegated Regulation establishing the criteria under which different economic activities substantially contribute to climate change mitigation and adaptation under Regulation 2020/852 on the Establishment of a Framework to Facilitate Sustainable Investment (“Taxonomy Regulation”).  Among other things, the Delegated Regulation defines the climate mitigation and adaptation criteria that the manufacture of hydrogen must meet to be considered a “sustainable investment” in the European Union.
Continue Reading The European Commission Approves the EU Criteria on Sustainable Hydrogen Activities

The UK Government has set itself very stretching emissions targets. A reduction of 68% on 1990 levels by 2030 and a Net-Zero target by 2050. To achieve these goals, the UK established a Committee on Climate Change with responsibility for setting a credible roadmap. It does this though a series of four-year Carbon Reduction Budgets, starting in 2008. The UK met the First and Second Budgets and is on course to meet the Third Budget. However, it is not on course to meet the Fourth and Fifth, covering the period 2023 – 2032. The CCC has set out five main measures to span the gap between the ambition of the 2050 Net-Zero Target and the reality of missing the next two Carbon Budgets. Two of those measures are demand-side. Of the remaining three measures, two involve the increasingly extensive use of hydrogen.
Continue Reading Hydrogen Policy Development in the UK

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NOPR) that would allow certain Solid Oxide Fuel Cell (SOFC) systems to be certified as Qualifying Facilities under the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978 (PURPA) and thus receive regulatory benefits meant, in part, to encourage the innovation and development of cogeneration facilities.  The proposal applies to SOFC systems that use heat and steam to convert natural gas to hydrogen, which then reacts with oxygen in the fuel cell to produce electricity, and then uses some of the heat and steam produced to continue converting methane into hydrogen to produce additional electricity.
Continue Reading FERC Proposes QF Status for Some Fuel Cell Facilities