Yesterday (16th March), Member States in the Environment Council agreed on their General Approach regarding the revision of the Industrial Emissions Directive (IED), which aims to regulate air, water and soil pollutants in industrial plants.

The Council has positively recognised that electrolysis-based hydrogen production technologies should be considered separately from other forms of production because electrolysis-based hydrogen production does not produce the emissions that would justify its inclusion in the IED. But the proposed text only excludes electrolysis plants below 60 tonnes per day (tpd), despite the fact that the emissions profile is not affected by size.

“The continued inclusion under the Industrial Emissions Directive of electrolysis-based hydrogen plants, which emit no pollution during operation, is unjustified and inconsistent with the EU’s REPowerEU ambitions. It also undermines the focus on reducing permitting times as proposed by the recent Net Zero Industry Act. This will delay the necessary ramp-up of the EU’s clean hydrogen industry, which is already facing fierce international competition,” said Daniel Fraile, Chief Policy Officer at Hydrogen Europe.

“The European Commission in its proposal failed to make a distinction between clean hydrogen production via electrolysis on the one hand and large steam methane reforming plants on the other. As electrolyser projects are rapidly increasing in size, the 60 tpd threshold introduced by the Council will be exceeded by most projects, delaying the construction of these vital and strategic plants,” he added.

Hydrogen Europe call on the European Parliament’s committee for the environment (ENVI) to acknowledge in its report the need to exclude electrolysis-based hydrogen production technologies from the scope of the IED.

Council General Approach

European Commission proposal