As the United States government rolls out billions of dollars in subsidies to produce hydrogen fuel for use in vehicles, factories, and power plants, a growing body of evidence is undercutting its clean credentials.The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) recently awarded $7 billion to seven regional hydrogen production hubs, on top of a lucrative tax credit whose rules have become the subject of intense...
Hydrogen Subsidies
The Indian government has revised its list of winners for the first auction for electrolyser manufacturing subsidies, originally announced in January, after steelmaker Jindal — which had won incentives for 300MW of annual manufacturing capacity — dropped out of the process. According to anonymous sources cited by local newspaper Mint in early February, Jindal had missed a deadline on 3 February for...
Tree Energy Solutions (TES), which is developing a massive liquefied natural gas (LNG) import terminal at Wilhelmshaven in Germany with a view to later producing and importing e-methane made from green hydrogen, has been granted an exemption from open market regulations. TES — which was characterised as a “subsidy harvester” by independent energy analyst and investor Michael Liebreich last year on...
The European Commission has approved a €900m ($974m) scheme by France’s government to support the production of renewable hydrogen- and biomass-based fuels for industry and transport. The French government plans to allocate direct grants to cover a portion of investment costs associated with producing these fuels by the end of 2025. However, it is unclear whether this €900m of state aid...
A US government plan for $1bn of subsidies for clean hydrogen users will be finalized by the end of September, the programme leader told the CERAWeek energy conference in Houston this week. Ernest Moniz, a controversial figure who was US energy secretary under President Barack Obama, was appointed by the Department of Energy in January to lead a consortium tasked with designing and implementing...
Big Oil and other polluters are leading a “massive lobbying campaign” against the US Treasury’s proposed clean hydrogen production tax credit guidelines, centred on “greenwashing” hydrogen produced from renewables and natural gas”, says a new report entitled The Hydrogen Hustle by Friends of the Earth. The US government released proposed guidelines back in December to ensure that companies...
The Ministry of Economy and Sustainable Development has prepared EUR 29.6 million to subsidize the construction of hydrogen filling stations and electricity chargers for vehicles over the next three years. The funds should enable Croatia to get its first hydrogen filling stations for cars, buses, and trucks. The plan is to install at least six units. Out of EUR 29.6 million in...
The Austrian government has massively increased the amount of money it will make available for green hydrogen production subsidies, the country’s finance minister announced today. Only last week, a new draft law was unveiled that would provide €400m ($438.5m) of subsidies through the EU’s European Hydrogen Bank (EHB) for Austrian green H2 projects over the next ten years — €40m annually. But...
The EU should implement long-term subsidies or tax incentives to offset the higher cost of running hydrogen-powered vehicles compared to battery electric vehicles (BEVs), according to a new report from the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC). After pointing out that fuel-cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) and buses (FCEBs) “face competition from battery electric alternatives, which benefit...
The European Union is leading the ecological transition on the roads, although in the United States we have not been too far behind either… until now. Just on the other side of the Atlantic, they have just approved subsidies for more futuristic vehicles than electric ones (and no, they are not going back to gasoline, nor are they betting everything on hybrids). Subsidies with which the EU is ahead of...