The Renewable Hydrogen Coalition (RHC) has drawn up a manifesto aimed at Europe’s policymakers. With less than two months to go before the European elections, the RHC is calling for an immediate scale-up plan on renewable hydrogen.

As a preamble of the manifesto, the Renewable Hydrogen Coalition points out that barely 10% of announced projects have received a final investment decision (FID), even though Europe has set pioneering policies and ambitious goals to become a global leader in renewable hydrogen. The hydrogen industry could employ 1 million people by 2030 (including 100,000 in France according to France Hydrogene) and 5.4 million by 2050 if the necessary investment is made. The reduction in greenhouse gases would be substantial. Between 70 and 100 million tonnes of CO2 could be avoided every year if Europe replaced its current fossil hydrogen with renewable hydrogen. By way of comparison, this reduction is equivalent to the annual emissions of the Czech Republic.

Top 5 priorities of the renewable hydrogen manifesto

The RHC calls on decision-makers to establish a strong European plan to accelerate the deployment of renewable hydrogen. The priorities are as follows:

-Prioritise renewable hydrogen across all legislative and funding frameworks.
-Mobilise EU funding for massive scale-up.
-Adopt a robust European industrial policy to secure global leadership in electrolyser technology.
-Set ambitious binding targets for 2040 to massively deploy renewable hydrogen and meet the 2030 targets.
-Build tailored hydrogen infrastructure for energy system integration.

The Renewable Hydrogen Coalition concludes the manifesto by remindin three key points: inaction will force the EU to remain dependent on external energy sources (i.e. oil and gas produced outside Europe); investment will happen abroad and Europe risks losing competitiveness if it does not act; finally, European industries that are currently at the cutting-edge, notably in electrolysers, could lose ground to a competition benefiting from “simpler and bolder” public support and lower energy costs.

You can read the full manifesto here.

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