Statement of the FNB Gas on the draft of the BMWK for the update of the National Hydrogen Strategy

The transmission system operators support the declared goal of the German government to accelerate the market ramp-up of hydrogen and its downstream products and to massively increase the level of ambition along the entire value chain by updating the National Hydrogen Strategy. To ensure the success of the energy transition and maintain its competitiveness, Germany as an industrial location needs reliable framework conditions for hydrogen ramp-up as quickly as possible in this highly dynamic environment.

In this context, the TSOs welcome the German government’s plans to also temporarily promote the import of blue hydrogen in view of the growing demand. The openness of technology to all types of climate-neutrally produced hydrogen is a step in the right direction. The anchoring of the expansion target for electrolyser capacity of 10 GW agreed in the coalition agreement and the planned Hydrogen Acceleration Act to simplify and accelerate planning and approval procedures also pay into the common goal of a rapid market ramp-up.

In particular, the TSOs are critical of the proposal to create a hydrogen grid company with state participation, as the establishment of such a company would take a long time without changing the initial situation for grid development. This blocks resources that are urgently needed right now, in the ramp-up phase, for the creation of an H2 infrastructure, and could also even jeopardize current projects. The privately organized, regulated gas network operators can smoothly coordinate the transformation of the natural gas infrastructure into a hydrogen infrastructure and quickly implement it within the existing structures.

The complete statement in German is available in the downloads.