Berlin (energate) - An alliance of more than 30 companies and associations from the industry and energy sectors now supports calls for short-term tenders for hydrogen amounting to 1,000 MW. Without such support, they see the entire ramp-up in jeopardy. Their argument is that the framework conditions for hydrogen are currently so unclear that companies are reluctant to invest. One reason is the long approval procedures for EU funding programmes. Industry representatives recently gave a sobering assessment of the German government's hydrogen policy. Apart from announcements, not much had happened, according to them. (
energate reported)
The demand for a hydrogen starter programme had already been made by a smaller group of energy suppliers and gas grid operators in January of this year in an appeal to the Federal Ministry of Economics and members of the Bundestag (
energate reported). This included the energy suppliers Trianel, Thüga and Uniper, the gas trader VNG, the gas grid operators Ontras, Bayernets, Open Grid Europe and Terranets.
In the meantime, the circle of supporters has grown to 34, as can be seen from a letter exclusively obtained by the editorial team. The VKU and the DVGW have joined the demand, as have the energy suppliers Eon, Mainova, OMV and Rheinenergie. Manufacturers such as Schäffler and MAN and the industrial gas supplier Linde are now also subscribing. According to the appeal, they all see "an urgent need for political action to enable the desired expansion in good time". In their view, hydrogen plants with a capacity of 1,000 MW must be connected to the grid during the current legislative period, i.e. by 2025. This would "build a bridge to longer-term structures and framework conditions for the ramp-up of hydrogen projects", the appeal said.
Tenders like H2-Global
The alliance envisages two tenders, 300 MW on 1 August 2023 and 700 MW on 1 February 2024. The process is to be based on the double auctions of the state foundation H2-Global (
energate reported). The higher costs for green hydrogen will be compensated by the state. H2-Global has a budget of billions of euros for this purpose. What a national starter programme for hydrogen would cost is an open question.
The companies involved also expressed their wish for additional short-term support for the market ramp-up this Friday at a meeting with the innovation commissioner for green hydrogen, Till Mansmann (FDP - Free Democratic Party; MdB). After the meeting, Mansmann reaffirmed the German government's intention to make Germany a hydrogen republic. "To achieve this, we must now massively accelerate the ramp-up of the hydrogen economy," he emphasised.
Hydrogen strategy in April at the earliest
In its coalition agreement, the coalition government had agreed to double the expansion targets for hydrogen by 2030. The adoption of the revised National Hydrogen Strategy has been delayed for months. This is supposed to provide the framework for the new targets. According to a current cabinet timetable available to energate, the new strategy will be adopted at the beginning of April at the earliest. A contentious issue in the coalition has recently been the question of whether the state should participate in hydrogen networks. This issue is not to be decided with the hydrogen strategy (
energate reported). /kw
