A Danish renewable hydrogen and e-fuels project is currently sat idle as it is waiting for Germany to ready the platform for companies to register compliant products and generate tradeable GHG quota credits, the developers told Argus.
Danish firms Gron Brint and GronGas have finished building a co-located 2MW electrolyser and e-LNG production plant, respectively, to supply LNG trucks in Germany, but their project cannot profitably start production without access to the credits.
The project was among the first to face the issue as it was the first to get certified, but more producers could encounter the same roadblock, the longer the wait for a registration platform goes on.
Germany this month took a key step to unlock access to credits when Berlin endorsed certification schemes for renewable fuels of non-biological origins (RFNBOs) — essentially renewable hydrogen and derivatives. But the country's environment agency UBA only plans to start preparing its electronic database of certification for hydrogen next year, it recently told Argus.
Without that database, firms cannot generate evidence that their product is compliant with rules nor access credits. Gron Brint and GronGas are waiting for UBA to clarify if firms could retrospectively add evidence to the platform, the companies' chief financial officer Rasmus Bang said.
The Danish producers and their customer would otherwise be ready to trade in early 2025, according to Bang.
"We're doing all we can to make people know there are actually plants ready to produce," GronGas chief executive Allan Olesen said.
"It's worrying that they haven't even started making a database yet, so we don't even know when they'll be ready" Olesen said. "My worry is that it could be middle or even late 2025," he added.
"It doesn't seem like this is a big task for UBA, it's not top of their priority list," Olesen said.
Gron Brint targets customers in Germany rather than Denmark, as the former has more LNG trucks and a much more lucrative GHG credit system, Bang said. Denmark set lesser CO2 reduction mandates than Germany, so willingness to pay for such fuels is lower, he said. Its location in northern Jutland lacks gas grid access or compression facilities so blending into pipelines or transport in the form of compressed natural gas with later regasification is not viable, he added.
The European Commission adopted its definition for renewable hydrogen 18 months ago, but practical systems to evidence and track compliant product still seem to be lacking across the bloc. Companies are frustrated with slow progress, but Germany and Denmark are still one step ahead of their peers in having recognised certification schemes.
