The proposed new EU Commission will have effectively one Commissioner who will be responsible for Hydrogen. Although the Clean Hydrogen Partnership CHP, will be funded by Europe’s Research budget, all policy related to hydrogen market development and infrastructure will be in the hand by Danish Commissioner designate for Energy, former Climate and Energy minister Dan Jørgensen.
He will be supervised by Teresa Ribera, Executive Vice-President-designate for Clean, Just, and Competitive Transition, the current Spanish Minister for the Ecological Transition. Her main tasks include the acceleration of the EU’s green energy transition, ensuring that renewable energy growth is both environmentally and economically sustainable. Furthermore, she will ensure that the EU meets its 2050 climate neutrality targets, as outlined in the EU Green Deal and the Fit-for-55 package. And she will have to find the right balance between the push for renewables whilst protecting European industries from rising energy costs and market volatility. On top of all of that she will also be in charge of Competition (DG COMP) and Competivity. According to her Mission Letter, her priorities are grid modernization, especially investment in energy storage and smart grid technologies, to accommodate the rise of renewable energy, ensuring a socially just transition, protecting workers and regions heavily dependent on fossil fuels.
In the only reference to hydrogen in the Mission letter to the Commissioner designate for Energy and Housing from Commission president von der Leyen, Mr. Jørgensen will be tasked “to further activate and extend the EU aggregate demand mechanism to go beyong gas and include hydrogen……”.
However EU Parliament questions for the Hearing of Mr. Jørgensen the first week of November, mainly include questions regarding Housing. Interestingly only the Industry Research and Energy (ITRE) Committee included questions on hydrogen, focussing on reducing reliance on import of hydrogen and on the role of the Hydrogen bank:
Mr. Jørgensen in his last role as Danish Minister for Development Cooperation and Global Climate Policy was a key player in the development of the the so called Climate Partnerships with developing countries. Since 2021 he became part of the Global Center on Adaptation, with a focus on Africa with a $25 billion Africa Adaptation Acceleration Program (AAAP), managed in collaboration with the African Development Bank.
The CTC Network promotes the accelerated transfer of environmentally sound technologies for low carbon and climate resilient development at the request of developing countries.
