The European Commission has announced a hydrogen energy ‘compact’ at the UN High-Level Dialogue on Energy in New York.

Compacts are partnerships between countries, NGOs and businesses that include voluntary targets on technology deployment.

“We have worked with Denmark, Germany, Irena and other partners on the Green Hydrogen Compact Catalogue. It is designed to give a boost to green hydrogen worldwide,” says European energy commissioner Kadri Simson.

The initiative aims to enable policy frameworks, regulation, certification, investments, research and development and public-private partnerships to bring down the costs of green hydrogen.

It consists of 29 voluntary commitments from the European Commission, three national governments (Denmark, Chile and Germany), two sub-national governments (Spain’s Basque region and the Netherlands’ Groningen province), thirty private sector companies and the UN International Development Organisation (Unido).

“It is designed to give a boost to green hydrogen worldwide,” Simson, European Commission

Altogether, this compact accounts for a total commitment of 129 GW electrolyser capacity. The commitments are stored in a registry that will measure progress against these goals.

The European Commission has specifically committed to cooperate on green hydrogen development with the African Union under the framework of the Africa-Europe Green Energy Initiative.

That initiative aims to support reforms of the energy sector in African nations and provide blended and guaranteed finance to accelerate renewables deployment. The EU will also support the development of green hydrogen, offshore wind and battery technologies.

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Author: Tom Young