Baltic Sea gas TSOs to accelerate development of hydrogen infrastructure

Nine gas transmission system operators (TSOs) in the countries around the Baltic Sea have signed an MoU to foster hydrogen market development in the region.

The MoU establishes and implements cooperation between the TSOs, with the aim to coordinate activities for the development of the hydrogen economy in the region, including the development of infrastructure projects for the transmission and storage of hydrogen.

In addition, the group intends to share information about developments in the hydrogen market and projects related to renewable hydrogen production and demand.

The signatories are Poland’s Gaz-System, Estonia’s Elering, Denmark’s Energinet, Finland’s Gasgrid Vetyverkot, Lithuania’s Amber Grid, Sweden’s Nordion Energi, Germany’s GASCADE Gastransport and ONTRAS Gastransport and Latvia’s Conexus Baltic Grid.

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Baltic Sea region

The Baltic Sea region holds substantial renewable potential and is estimated could supply up to 45% of the clean hydrogen production outlined in the REPowerEU plan by 2030.

Under the Marienborg Declaration, which was signed by Baltic Sea region country heads of governments and energy ministers in August 2022, the commitment was made to significantly expand the offshore wind capacity from 2.8GW in 2022 to 19.6GW by 2030 and to cooperate closely on its development as well as to explore joint cross-border renewable energy projects and infrastructure needs.

Thus the new MoU is within the spirit of the Marienborg Declaration, which together with the EU agenda is aimed towards reducing Europe’s dependency on imported Russian fossil fuels, accelerating progress towards European climate targets and improving the safety and resilience of the European energy system.

Hydrogen projects around the Baltic Sea

The gas TSOs already have launched several large-scale studies for the development of cross-border hydrogen infrastructure projects to build an infrastructure and market in line with the REPowerEU plan, regional targets, national strategies and the European Hydrogen Backbone vision.

These include four cross-border infrastructure projects, the Nordic-Baltic Hydrogen Corridor, the Baltic Sea Hydrogen Collector, the Bornholm-Lubmin Interconnector and the Nordic Hydrogen Route.