Hydrogen is one of the key elements of the European Union's European Green Deal strategy. The original draft assumptions for the RED II revision envisaged that production and imports of 'green' hydrogen would be 5.6 million tonnes in 2030. Now, following the revision of the original assumptions under the announced REPowerEU programme, the target is 10 million tonnes of domestic hydrogen production and 10 million tonnes of hydrogen imports from outside the EU by 2030.
These ambitious targets therefore entail the need to start large-scale hydrogen production and to build the necessary technical infrastructure without delay in order to meet the emission reduction targets. In Poland, to date, however, there is no legislation in place to regulate hydrogen-related activities.
It is worth noting, however, that according to the Polish Hydrogen Strategy to 2030, the installed capacity of low-emission hydrogen production facilities will be 50 MW by 2025 and 2 GW by 2030. By 2025, no fewer than 32 hydrogen filling stations are to be in operation and at least 800 hydrogen buses are to be on Polish roads in 2030.
The objectives of the draft new law
So far, ambitious goals have not been matched by legislative solutions. This state is beginning to change. On 21 October 2022, the Government Legislation Center published a draft act amending the Energy Law and certain other acts (UD 382), the intention of which is to introduce regulations related to hydrogen activities into the Polish legal system.
The regulations provide for, among other things:
1) Recognition of hydrogen as a fuel within the meaning of the Energy Law;
2) Introduction of a number of definitions related to hydrogen, including hydrogen grid and hydrogen transmission;
3) The need to obtain a concession to conduct hydrogen-related activities;
4) Rules for the establishment of a hydrogen system operator and a hydrogen storage system operator.
The legislator provides for a 3-month vacatio legis of the draft new law, so it is to be expected that the provisions may enter into force fairly quickly. Regardless of the time needed to refine the legal framework of the proposed solutions, surely the very publication of the draft legislation regulating hydrogen activity is a significant step forward for the development of hydrogen infrastructure in Poland.
We will take a closer look at the detailed assumptions of the draft "hydrogen" law in subsequent articles.
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