Assistance to the impact assessment for designing a regulatory framework for hydrogen

The European Union (EU) set itself a goal of creating at least 40 GW of electrolyser capacity within the EU and a goal of using up to 10 million tonnes/year of renewable hydrogen by around 2030 in line with its goal of climate neutrality by 2050 target. Much of this hydrogen is expected to be delivered through a pipeline network akin to the existing gas grid. The European Commission (EC) is considering which regulation, if any, should cover the build-out and operation of this hydrogen network, especially across EU Member States (MSs). The expected rulemaking requires the EC to publish an impact assessment before it can be adopted. This report presents: An overarching framework for the impact assessment of regulations that could be used for the EU hydrogen market A qualitative assessment of the key regulatory measures against principal impact criteria within this framework (hydrogen market structure, cross-border integration, administrative costs, investments incentives for new hydrogen infrastructure, repurposing of natural gas pipelines), as well as their effect as part of example policy packages Several methods for quantifying or semi-quantitatively assessing indicators for the future EU energy system under various scenarios and assumptions that can be expected to differ across EU hydrogen policy packages.