17 July 2024
On the 17th of July, 2024, the European Court of Auditors published its special report entitled “The EU’s industrial policy on renewable hydrogen: Legal Framework has been mostly adopted – time for a reality check.
ECA has performed an audit to assess to what extent the European Commission has been effective in creating the right conditions for emerging renewable and low-carbon hydrogen markets.
The report’s overall conclusion is that the Commission has been partially successful in its endeavour to create the right framework conditions for the emerging hydrogen market and hydrogen value chain in the EU.
For example, the report points out that the Commission did not perform robust analyses before setting EU targets for the (domestic) production and imports of renewable hydrogen by 2030 and neither translated the targets on EU level into binding targets for Member States. Based on information currently available from Member States and industry, the EU is unlikely to meet its renewable hydrogen import and production targets by 2030.
ECA also stresses that, whereas the investments needs are immense, sufficient public funding is not available. In addition, industry has to deal with different EU funding programmes which all operate by different rules, making it difficult for industry to choose among the different funding programmes available.
To address the above shortcomings, ECA among others recommends that the Commission:
- Updates its Hydrogen Strategy by end 2025;
- Sets out by mid-2026 an EU roadmap for the development of a hydrogen value chain towards 2030 and beyond, based on an assessment of its updated Hydrogen Strategy and Member States’ national energy and climate plans;
- Obtains reliable funding data from Member States. Based on this data, the Commission should by end-2025 assess the appropriateness of EU funding arrangements;
The report can be accessed here.
Source: European Court of Auditors.