The EU will legislate to allow natural gas storage assets and pipelines to be converted to transport or store a blend of hydrogen and natural gas.

It will also provide financial assistance for such projects up until the end of December 2027.

The revisions come as part of updates to the Trans-European Networks for Energy (TEN-E) regulation—a part of the EU energy and climate package which provides financial support for cross-border and international energy projects with the goal of integrating different member states’ energy systems.

The revised regulation will also provide support for electrolysers of at least 50MW capacity to help develop trans-European hydrogen networks. Hydrogen advocacy group Hydrogen Europe had lobbied for a lower threshold of 50MW—down from 100MW originally proposed by the European Commission—arguing that reducing the threshold would allow more projects to become eligible for funding under the TEN-E rules. The regulation is primarily aimed at cross-border and large-scale electrolyser projects.

“Today’s deal makes sure we will invest in a green and climate-neutral future,” Vrtovec, Slovenia

The revised regulation ends support for new natural gas and oil projects and introduces mandatory sustainability criteria for all projects. It also simplifies and accelerates permitting and authorisation procedures.

“The agreement reached today makes sure that in the future, no new fossil fuel projects will receive funding from the Connecting Europe Facility,” says Jernej Vrtovec, Slovenian minister of infrastructure.

“Today’s deal makes sure we will invest in a green and climate-neutral future that guarantees efficiency, competitiveness and security of supply, while leaving no one behind.”

The European Commission presented its proposal on a revised TEN-E on 15 December 2020, identifying eleven priority corridors and three priority thematic areas to develop and interconnect.

TEN-E will identify projects of common interest that are eligible for financing from the Connecting Europe Facility for 2021-2027.

Now that the final shape of the law has been agreed by the EU Council and the European Parliament, it will be translated onto the statute books over the next few months—the first part of the EU’s ‘Fit for 55’ package to be legislated.

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Author: Tom Young