Governing New Technologies in the Energy Transition – The Hydrogen Strategy to the Rescue?

Abstract

This article analyses the European Commission's Hydrogen Strategy with a focus on its broader implications for EU energy law. Given the specificities of the technology itself, existing regulatory instruments are not always apt to accommodate the wide-scale introduction of hydrogen into the energy mix. Indeed, from a legal perspective, hydrogen faces a vast number of challenges, which can be clustered into three main categories, namely challenges related to (1) the creation of an internal market for hydrogen, (2) the creation of new lead markets for hydrogen, and (3) infrastructure for hydrogen. The aim is to answer the question to what extent the regulatory challenges are already acknowledged and covered by the Hydrogen Strategy, and to the extent they are not, how the future steps in the hydrogen-related policy making process can effectively address them.