Market-building mechanism for European 'clean' hydrogen goes live
Way off track to meet ambitious production targets, the EU is looking to link prospective producers with buyers
An EU scheme to kickstart a market for clean hydrogen by linking potential supply to demand went live on Wednesday as Brussels looks to open a bottleneck in the production of an energy carrier that could clean up steelmaking or produce low-carbon fuels to power aviation and shipping.
“By connecting buyers and sellers, this hydrogen mechanism will help us create a cleaner and competitive future for our energy and our economy,” energy commissioner Dan Jørgensen said in a statement.
In practice, producers of hydrogen and its derivatives will be able to submit supply offers online until 2 January 2026. The EU executive will then publish the data anonymously on 19 January, after which buyers will be able to submit an “expression of interest” in purchasing the gas.
Under EU rules, the label ‘clean’ is applied to hydrogen produced using renewable electricity (‘green’ hydrogen), of when it is made using ‘low-carbon’ processes based on nuclear power or fossil fuels coupled with carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies.
An alternative to petroleum
Hydrogen can be used as an energy vector in itself, or combined with CO2 to produce ‘low-carbon’ synthetic alternatives to hydrocarbon fuels such as kerosene.
As it strives to cut reliance on fossil fuels, the EU planned to produce 10 million tonnes (Mt) of renewable hydrogen by 2030, with the same volume to be imported, but the bloc is so far off track that many believe the targets are not achievable.
The European Court of Auditors slammed them as “overly ambitious” in 2024, while a recent forecast from the industry association Hydrogen Europe suggested the entire European Economic Area plus the UK would only produce 2.3 million tonnes of clean hydrogen by the end of the decade.
When it comes to the EU itself, the lobby group noted the 27 members are legally bound by rules such as fuel mandates to use 2.8 Mt tonnes of renewable hydrogen and its derivatives by 2030, but current projections of production and imports envisage supply of just 1.7 Mt.
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