The year 2025 is entering the home stretch. Everyone wants to quickly check off their to-do lists: complete projects, submit funding applications, process accounts. In German politics as well, several projects are supposed to be finished “by the end of the year,” or at least by early 2026.
It is said that the draft law for the greenhouse gas reduction quota for road transport is supposed to be introduced to the Bundestag, the Federal Parliament of Germany, before the end of the year. The quota is part of the third Renewable Energy Directive (RED III) and should actually have been anchored in German law since May.
A step forward was made in Germany in mid-December regarding power plants. The government agreed on an installed capacity and also on the requirement that new power plants must be H2-ready in the long term. This requirement is more than one might expect.
That there will be an obligation to operate them with hydrogen as soon as possible seems, according to previous statements by Energy and Economy Minister Katherina Reiche, rather unlikely. But apart from hydrogen, the economic basis for power plant tenders would also have to be created – because at some point they will simply be needed, and you cannot just order finished gas-fired power plants by express delivery on the internet.
This mood of tense waiting was also present at the Hydrogen Technology World Expo in Hamburg, where the H2international editorial team was on site – even though the trade fair was larger than ever before and many projects are finally being implemented.
Just a few years ago, climate protection was clearly humanity’s most pressing mission. The physics have not changed, only the awareness. And so we are treading water, and the water is rising. Not only literally on the coasts, but also figuratively for companies and people who invested money and time in the sector. And then, all of a sudden, the electrolyzer manufacturer Sunfire announces an unexpected new customer: Rheinmetall wants to produce e-fuels in decentralized plants. That is certainly not cheap and is certainly not a business field that can save the whole hydrogen sector. But what matters is that, in an emergency, e-fuels shall allow a certain amount of independence and functionality to be maintained. With this, Rheinmetall is putting an advantage of local energy production back on the agenda that had already been forgotten: resilience. It is never cheap – but priceless when it matters.
