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.

Experimenting with co-ownership of energy storage facilities - A case study of the Netherlands

“…92.The benefits of regulatory sandboxes in developing new approaches and creating regulatory innovations are broadly discussed, see for instance: Sofia Ranchordás, ‘Innovation-Friendly Regulation: The Sunset of Regulation the Sunrise of Innovation’ (2015) 55 Jurimetrics J., 201-244; Sofia Ranchordás, ‘Experimental Regulations and Regulatory Sandboxes – Law Without Order?’ (2021) LaM; Kanerva Sunila & Ari Ekroos, ‘Regulating radical innovations in the EU electricity markets: time for a robust sandbox’ (2023) Journal of Energy & Natural Resources Law 2023, 41:1, 5-25.; Tim Schittekatte a,c, Leonardo Meeus a,c, Tooraj Jamasb b, Manuel Llorca b, Regulatory experimentation in energy: Three pioneer countries and lessons for the green transition, Energy Policy 156 (2021) 112382; regulatory sandboxes have also been proposed in other areas of the energy transition such as the development of hydrogen infrastructure and the use of hydrogen, see Saskia Lavrijssen and Blanka Vitéz, ‘Make Hydrogen Whilst the Sun Shines: How to Turn the Current Momentum into a Well-Functioning Hydrogen Market?’ (2020) CCLR; Gökçe Mete and Leonie Reins, ‘Governing New Technologies in the Energy Transition – The Hydrogen Strategy to the Rescue?‘ (2020) 3 CCLR; Saskia Lavrijssen & Max Baumgart, Exploring regulatory strategies for accelerating the development of sustainable hydrogen markets, Journal of Energy & Natural Resources Law (Lavrijssen & Baumgart, 2023). …”