WARSAW– Poland is seeking changes to the rules guiding the European Union’s auctions for renewable hydrogen projects to create a more level playing field for member states, a Polish official said on Thursday.
By 2030, the EU plans to produce 10 million of renewable hydrogen using electrolysers, machines that use electricity to split water to produce the clean fuel.
The EU Hydrogen Bank, which was set up to help finance renewables projects, awarded 720 million euros ($777.31 million) to seven projects in April at the first auction. Five of the seven winning bids came from Spain and Portugal, where more sunshine means solar plants can produce much more electricity than in Poland or Germany.
“We lost to Spain, we lost to Portugal, because they have much better conditions for producing hydrogen from renewable energy sources,” Poland’s Deputy Climate Minister Krzysztof Bolesta told reporters.
To ensure a level playing field among bidders, Poland has initiated discussions among the bloc’s climate and energy ministers on the idea that the EU should allocate national pools for hydrogen funds at the auctions, Bolesta said. He did not give further details about how Poland’s proposed plan would work.
“We simply want to encourage the Commission to equalize this competition between countries by creating national baskets,” he said, adding that the Polish initiative has been supported by the Czech Republic, Slovakia and France. The European Commission has said it plans to draw lessons from the first pilot auction before it holds the next one later this year.
Reporting by Marek Strzelecki; Editing by Susan Fenton
SOURCE: Reuters
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