The European Commission unveiled proposals to further boost renewables and quadruple current 2030 targets for green hydrogen supplies as part of a hastily assembled strategy to cut the EU’s reliance on Russian gas by two-thirds as soon as the end of this year. The Commission claimed that measures in its REPowerEU plan could make the bloc independent of Russian supplies well before 2030 as it scrambled to respond to the implications of the invasion of Ukraine. Alongside a raft of short-term proposals focused on getting more fossil gas from non-Russian sources and boosting gas storage, the plan focuses heavily on the need to electrify using renewables and increase the profile of green hydrogen in the EU economy. On renewables, REPowerEU proposes beefed-up ambitions beyond those already set out in its ‘Fit for 55’ decarbonization strategy, which currently foresees deployment of 900GW of wind and solar by 2030. The Commission wants ‘front loading’ of wind and PV to speed build-out and an extra 80GW of capacity to support more green hydrogen production.
For H2, REPowerEU proposes a ‘Hydrogen Accelerator’ programme to spur an additional 15 million tonnes of renewable hydrogen by 2030 on top of the 5.6 million tonnes already foreseen under its existing Hydrogen strategy. That would comprise 10 million tonnes imported from “diverse sources” and an extra five million tonnes made in the EU. The Commission also pledged to fast-track market reforms to promote development of hydrogen projects and infrastructure such as storage. Lowering Europe’s dependence on fossil imports will require a reliable electricity system drawing on the full range of technologies. It is encouraging that the European Commission actively seeks to harvest the clean-energy potential of electricity by accelerating heat pump installations and deployment of new renewable projects. Permitting delays remain the key barrier for new power capacity.