At a time when real-terms emissions reductions are desperately needed, making sure green hydrogen is as ‘green’ as it claims is extremely important. After all, if any electrolytic hydrogen is classified as green, the perverse incentive to burn extra fossil fuels to compensate for additional grid demand from electrolysers could do more harm than good.

While the EU’s current delegated acts to the Renewable Energy Directive are taking time to emerge, additionality clauses such as those requiring either dedicated renewables capacity, an almost entirely renewables-dominated grid or temporal correlation to renewable energy production are likely to remain in some form in the final draft in an effort to encourage a twin growth of renewables and hydrogen.

However, current permitting restrictions across many European nations already limit space and add lag to renewable energy project development, let alone for dedicated green hydrogen production. Additionality will favour projects outside Europe that can construct a large number of wind turbines and solar panels very quickly, with no impact from local opposition on construction deadlines. Projects in such countries are already at an advantage due to the potential for cheaper renewable power than those in the EU.

The energy transition should present an opportunity for geopolitics to shift

One example, Saudi Arabia’s planned Neom city, will include a $5bn green hydrogen and ammonia production complex, due to come onstream mid-decade. But while photos from the site in the country’s northwest might imply a pristine, empty desert landscape—perfect for building the scale of solar panels and wind turbines needed to power a 2GW electrolyser—the government has already faced outcry from the local Huwaitat tribe, displaced without compensation to make way for the $500bn city. Since 2020, several opposition figureheads have been arrested—with one man shot by security forces—and at the beginning of October, three Huwaitat men involved in local opposition to Neom were sentenced to death by Saudi Arabia’s Specialised Criminal Court, according to NGO Alqst.

If European importers are to offtake from Neom, they would do well to consider the human rights impacts of such projects as carefully as they are likely to consider additionality criteria.

Geopolitical shift

The world’s dependence on fossil fuels has historically led Europe and the US to turn a blind eye to human rights abuses as long as regimes continued to sell barrels of oil to Western markets, but some had hoped the energy transition could present an opportunity for geopolitics to shift.

Any country with high wind and solar resource can produce hydrogen for export to demand centres. This presents a major opportunity for the West to diversify its suppliers, in an effort to both improve energy security and ensure consistent ethics throughout supply chains. Speakers at recent conferences have made the point that hydrogen importers must make an effort not to replicate the geopolitical dependencies of the past.

There is already more political impetus in developed countries to scrutinise renewables. The US ordered a ban last year specifically on components and goods made using silica from Chinese firm Hoshine Silicon Industry, while the EU has proposed a wider ban on products made with forced labour—both measures responding to reported human rights violations in Xinjiang, despite likely disruption of new solar development without access to ultra-low-cost panels.

While the rush to replace Russian gas may make any source of zero-carbon gas tempting, a dependence on projects with a reported human cost may end up with similar backlash.

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Author: Polly Martin