The European Commission will consult hydrogen market stakeholders and the broader public regarding the bloc’s approaching hydrogen strategy.
Opened on Monday (26 October), a four-week call for evidence aims to gather inputs affecting the “scope and content” of the strategy document.
No timeline has been disclosed for publishing the final strategy, but it will cover the period to 2040, alongside the broader renewable energy framework for the same timeframe.
The call for evidence closes on 23 November.
It follows events which have raised questions around the EU’s future position on green hydrogen and renewable fuel of non-biological origin (RFNBO) mandates.
A European Commission draft, leaked in September, showed the executive considering scrapping bloc-wide green hydrogen mandates after 2030, while a separate, pre-dating, leak from Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs (BMWE) also questioned the existing mandate structure.
Potential major changes to the standing requirements have broadly been met with criticism from the sector.
More than 260 European energy sector players have urged the Commission to maintain binding targets mandating RFNBOs to account for 1% of transport energy and 42% of all hydrogen used in industry by 2030, with quotas increasing in following decades.
Hydrogen Europe CEO, Jorgo Chatzimarkakis, told H2 View the proposed removal of quotas would be “a catastrophe” for the industry.
