Making clean hydrogen and aluminium manufacturing eligible in the Sustainable Taxonomy

Challenge: The current Taxonomy screening criteria disqualifies grid-connected manufacturing of hydrogen and aluminium, regardless of the technology used.

Background

In the “EU Taxonomy Report: Technical Annex” that was published on 9 March 2020, the screening criteria specifies that the average carbon intensity for the electricity that is used for manufacturing of hydrogen and aluminium must be at or below 100 gCO2e/kWh.

In order for any electricity grid-connected hydrogen and aluminium manufacturing to be defined as sustainable according to the Sustainable Taxonomy, there is a need to adjust or make an addition to the screening criteria in the Technical Annex to the Taxonomy report under 3.5 Manufacture of Hydrogen and 3.3 Manufacture of Aluminium.

This amendment is crucial to allow for electricity grid-connected sustainable hydrogen and aluminium manufacturing, enabling timely scale-up of clean hydrogen.