Hydrogen

At present, the market participants are focusing on building the necessary supply chains from the producers to the consumers and on the relevant hydrogen infrastructure for production, transport, storage and use. As soon as the first local, regional and global supply chains (which are not exclusively based on long-term contracts between two or very few market participants) have emerged, the market can be opened to new participants and can, hence, evolve.

The state- and EU-funded PCI and IPCEI infrastructure projects or import projects (e.g. H2Global), in particular, offer good preconditions for this, as they give established, as well as new market participants, market-based and, hence, non-discriminatory access to hydrogen and hydrogen derivatives as well as its infrastructure.

Because there is still a lack of border-crossing infrastructure for gaseous hydrogen (European hydrogen backbone) and this is not expected to be remedied until, at least, 2026, green hydrogen derivatives, such as ammonia, methanol and kerosene, which are transportable using existing infrastructures (ship, train and lorries) will become freely tradable first.

In future, EEX will have separate offers for trading of hydrogen as a gaseous standard product, trading of guarantees of origin of hydrogen and a combination of hydrogen and the green characteristic - provided the corresponding regulatory framework conditions are clearly defined and the infrastructural preconditions (e.g. transport and storage) have been created.

EEX will enable trading in hydrogen products and its derivatives via a browser-based trading system in line with the demands of the market. The trading participants registered for hydrogen and hydrogen derivatives at EEX will be cleared for trading in these clusters or market areas in line with the respective applicable cluster- and market area-specific requirements.

A guarantee of origin is an electronic document, which guarantees full transparency and traceability of the energy consumed by end consumers.

GOs primarily exist for network-based energy sources such as renewable power, natural gas or hydrogen. They are traded through a book & claim system where the sustainability claim of the energy is separate from thephysical flow. This allows renewable or decarbonized hydrogen to be tracked when fed into a network or blended with other types of gas.

The system allows for trading in hydrogen or hydrogen derivatives as standardised products, independent of the origin and transport route, in particular, on cross-border grid hydrogen markets.

Trading in low-emission or emission-free hydrogen can be connected with a mass balance system. In this case, the emission reduction certificate is traded together with the hydrogen or hydrogen derivative along the transport route, from production to consumption.

Until the “European Hydrogen Backbone” grid hydrogen transport infrastructure is established, the hydrogen molecule or derivatives can be traced from production to alternative transport on sea, rail, road to the consumer. In principle, this is still possible via mass balance.

EEX Group is already an important stakeholder in guarantees of origin today. Grexel and EEX already offer registries for power, biogas and hydrogen in 15 European countries.

Grexel is member of the CertifHy consortium, the first European registry for hydrogen certificates, and provides services to the Finnish biogas & hydrogen GO registry and the Latvian biogas & hydrogen registry. EEX also organises primary auctions of guarantees of origin on behalf of the French state, while EPEX Spot operates the first European multilateral power GO spot auction.

Grexel and EEX will support market participants at the market-based implementation of the delegated act on the RED II directive.