EU auditor slams 2030 hydrogen target as ‘politically driven’

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The European Court of Auditors criticised the European Commission for setting unachievable hydrogen production and import targets for 2030 in a new report published on Wednesday (July 17), while praising its swift adoption of market rules.

In 2020, the EU passed One of the world’s first hydrogen strategiesLater, when Russia attacks Ukraine in 2022, the EU bets that natural gas fuel will replace gas supplies to the Kremlin, setting 10 million Tons of production and 10 million tons of imports.

“Four years after the launch of the hydrogen strategy, we call for a reality check,” said Stef Bloc, a member of the European Court of Auditors responsible for developing the hydrogen strategy. New report on hydrogenhe told reporters at a briefing ahead of the report’s release.

The auditors’ comprehensive report on EU hydrogen policy paints a mixed picture: the EU has adopted appropriate legislation to expand the hydrogen market, but has also set too many “political” targets for production and imports.

“Based on information provided by member states and industry, the EU is unlikely to achieve these targets by 2030,” Bloc said. The report said the targets were “driven by political will rather than based on robust analysis.”

Auditors also found that EU funds were misused, with the report noting that the European Commission had “no complete data on allocated or planned national public funds” and that the 18.8 billion euros that Brussels was to allocate for the 2021-2027 period was “spread across several projects with different funding rules.”

“This makes it difficult for hydrogen project developers to determine which projects projects that are best suited for them,” the report added.

The European Commission’s work on new rules for the future hydrogen market was highly praised, with the European Commission saying the commission’s “work on the legal framework for renewable hydrogen is commendable.”

This positive feedback comes with a caveat: the years-long delay in passing the Additionality enabling bill, which sets standards for “renewable hydrogen” – the most climate-friendly type – has created market uncertainty and spooked investors.

Auditors said that “the uncertainty created by the absence of this key enabling act is one of the main reasons project developers hesitate before making a final investment decision”.

Jorgo Chatzimarkakis, chief executive of Hydrogen Europe, an industry association, said the adoption of the framework was “swift and powerful”.

However, “the accompanying measures, in particular the delegated act defining renewable hydrogen, are taking too long and are too complex”, Chatzimarkakis added.

The European Commission commented ahead of the report’s release: “Our work is far from done.”

The EU’s executive arm added that the next step was to accelerate the “deployment and use” of low-carbon and renewable hydrogen in Europe.

Auditors expressed similar views, recommending that the E.U. “Update its hydrogen strategy based on a careful assessment of market incentives for renewable and low-carbon hydrogen, the scarcity of EU funds and the geopolitical implications of EU production compared to imports”.

This means “updating” hydrogen targets “to make them ambitious yet realistic,” the report wrote.

(Editing by Donagh Cagney/Daniel Eck)