Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney believes his country can support the EU’s energy security with “large-scale” supplies of hydrogen and liquefied natural gas (LNG), as Ottawa and Brussels explore an unprecedented associate membership for Canada.
The comments came in a speech to the European Parliament discussing Canada’s potential associate membership, where he called for closer cooperation on defence, critical minerals, and energy security.
“Canada can contribute LNG and hydrogen at large-scale to support Europe’s energy security, including by developing and leveraging new port infrastructure in the High North and on our East Coast,” he said.
“And Canada, in turn, can benefit from your [EU] leadership in many clean technologies.”
It came after European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen proposed “opening the door” to Canada’s associate member status.
The comments appear to revive ambitions for Canada to become a key green hydrogen supplier to the bloc.
Canada and Germany launched their “Hydrogen Alliance” in August 2022 with a target for initial Canadian hydrogen exports to begin in 2025, alongside plans to establish a transatlantic supply corridor. No such exports have materialised.
The two governments have since sought to underpin the trade through a dedicated €400m ($459m) H2Global funding window designed to bridge the gap between Canadian production costs and what German buyers are willing to pay.
The scheme received EU state aid approval in January this year.
But several projects on Canada’s East Coast once expected to feed that corridor have struggled to advance.
In February, Newfoundland and Labrador declined to extend Crown land reserves for World Energy GH2, EverWind’s provincial subsidiary, and Toqlukui’k Wind and Hydrogen, citing a “lack of progress and non-payment” of reserve fees.
Only Exploits Valley Renewable Energy Corporation received a further extension, reducing the province’s reserved wind development areas from 381,676 hectares to just 30,712 hectares.
World Energy GH2’s Project Nujio’qonik in Stephenville, which was singled out by Canada as one of the leading projects for the Canada-Germany Hydrogen Alliance, has ultimately been frozen.
Nova Scotia has seen some stronger progress, although timelines have been pushed back.
EverWind’s original environmental assessment envisaged construction of its Point Tupper green hydrogen and ammonia plant from spring 2023 and a first product shipment in autumn 2025. The developer now says construction of the Point Tupper facility is targeted to begin in 2027.
The export ambitions were formed against the backdrop of the EU’s REPowerEU plan, which envisaged 10 million tonnes per year of renewable hydrogen imports by 2030. While that target remains in place, its feasibility has increasingly been questioned by EU institutions.
