Hydrogen technology : workshop summary

It is widely accepted that renewable and decarbonised hydrogen will need to play a major role in the EU’s future decarbonised energy market. The technological solutions to produce it exist. However, the costs are high and the production capacity is small. How to drive down costs and catalyse sufficient capacity in time for the 2050 decarbonisation deadline? How to ensure that the principles of the internal gas market are retained? How to link the electricity and gas markets? How could ETS accelerate the process? These are some of the questions to answer to design the policy framework. This report is a summary of two online workshops organised by The Florence School of Regulation on the 15th and 22nd of April that shed valuable light on the state of technological development regarding renewable and decarbonised/low-carbon hydrogen. One focused on decarbonised hydrogen produced from natural gas; the other examined the potential of renewable hydrogen. They were both organised in the context of the European Commission’s preparations for its ‘Energy System Integration’ initiative and they aimed to examine and discuss technological development, as well as current and future policy/regulation landscape for hydrogen.