Today, the European Parliament’s Environment, Public Health, and Food Safety (ENVI) Committee adopted its report on the revision of the Industrial Emissions Directive (IED), which aims to regulate air, soil, and water pollution of industrial plants.

In an important achievement for hydrogen, the committee has recognised that electrolysis-based hydrogen production must be distinguished from high emission industrial processes. However, the report only exempts electrolyser plants with a hydrogen capacity of below 50 MW electricity input, even though the size of the plant does not affect its emission profile.

“Exempting electrolysers of a certain size from the Industrial Emissions Directive follows the same approach adopted by the Council back in March. Yet, the Council’s 60 tonne per day hydrogen production threshold allows the exclusion of larger plants. Electrolysers lack the emissions profile to justify their inclusion in the IED. Maintaining this inclusion will impose unnecessary requirements on the permitting procedures for electrolysers, delaying their deployment and thus undermining the REPowerEU strategy and the Net-Zero Industry Act,” said Daniel Fraile, Chief Policy Officer at Hydrogen Europe.

Hydrogen Europe hopes the co-legislators can progress the file through trialogues, aligning the IED with the REPowerEU and the Net-Zero Industry Act’s approach of accelerating permitting rules for hydrogen production by fully excluding electrolysers from the scope of the IED.

See the compromise amendments below: