Commission supports the European Clean Hydrogen Alliance to reduce EU dependency on Russian gas

Today, the Commission is hosting the fourth Forum of the European Clean Hydrogen Alliance. Members of the Alliance will discuss the Commission’s REPowerEU Plan, which sets out a series of actions to accelerate hydrogen deployment to spur the green transition and replace Russian fossil fuels. At today’s event, the ‘Electrolyser Partnership‘ announced in May will also be launched. It will support the commitment by industry to increase tenfold its hydrogen electrolyser manufacturing capacity by 2025. Furthermore, today the Alliance will present its report on the permitting of hydrogen installations, which will inform the ongoing Commission work to simplify procedures for renewable energy and hydrogen projects. Finally, the Alliance will collect new hydrogen projects from its members to be included into the project pipeline of the Alliance. Executive Vice-President for the European Green Deal, Frans Timmermans said: “Hydrogen is an essential part of Europe’s future energy sovereignty. The speed of development of the European hydrogen sector shows that we can decarbonise our economy and secure our independence from Russian fossil fuels. The hydrogen accelerator in the RePowerEU plan will steer the necessary investment to scale up European production of clean hydrogen.” Commissioner for the Internal Market, Thierry Breton, said: “Hydrogen enables the green transition of Europe’s industry and is a driver for industrial innovation, competitiveness and resilience. The European industry is rolling out large-scale projects producing clean hydrogen and using it to decarbonise industrial processes. The European Clean Hydrogen Alliance is instrumental in this process. The Alliance facilitates partnerships and collaboration, fostering transnational investments materialising, notably, in IPCEIs, and helping create a favourable regulatory environment.” The European Clean Hydrogen Alliance was created by the Commission in 2020. It brings together more than 1600 organisations involved in deploying clean hydrogen in Europe. Its objective is to support the large-scale deployment of clean hydrogen technologies by 2030 by bringing together renewable and low-carbon hydrogen production, demand in industry, mobility and other sectors, and hydrogen transmission and distribution.