Letter on hydrogen: The French connection

The Middle East energy shock has highlighted the value of France’s unique potential to deploy nuclear-powered electrolysers

The European Commission quietly waved through France’s latest low-carbon hydrogen subsidy plans with a low-key announcement in late March, as the energy shock sparked by the escalating conflict in the Middle East threatened to tip global economies into recession. Under the plans, the French government will use public funds to subsidise the deployment of 1GW of electrolysis capacity through a series competitive tenders. As a first step, developers will be invited to bid for about €800b ($927b) of subsidies to support the deployment development of 200MW of capacity. The subsidies will be in the form of fixed payments of a 15-year period. Nothing remarkable here. The scheme is broadly in line w