EC Hydrogen Review Sets Back Hourly Certificate Launch, Experts Warn
The European Commission's hydrogen rules review risks delaying hourly guarantees of origin to 2030 or beyond, creating verification uncertainty for project developers.
The European Commission's review of renewable hydrogen regulations could push back the launch of hourly guarantees of origin (GOs) to 2030 or later without reversing the broader move toward more granular certificates, analysts and market participants told Montel on Tuesday (2026-06-30).4
The timing is consequential. Hourly GOs are the mechanism by which buyers of renewable hydrogen can verify that the electricity used to produce it was generated in the same hour it was consumed — a requirement embedded in the EU's delegated act on renewable fuels of non-biological origin. Without them, project developers and offtakers face a gap between the commercial infrastructure they need and the regulatory baseline the Commission is now reviewing.4
The review is not expected to abandon the granularity push. Experts told Montel that the direction of travel toward more time-specific certificates appears intact; what is uncertain is when hourly GOs will formally launch. The distinction matters for market participants who have built project timelines and hedging strategies around an earlier expectation.4
A separate but related development compounds the pressure on standard GO liquidity. The Commission's draft proposal on data centres, reported by Montel on Thursday (2026-05-21), would require facilities to source electricity on a granular matching basis. Market observers said the measure is likely to pull demand toward granular GOs even before an hourly standard exists, weakening trading volumes in less specific standard products.1
The tension is real. Hourly markets require sufficient depth on both sides to avoid becoming bilateral, bespoke arrangements that large buyers can navigate but smaller participants cannot. A delay in mandating the standard risks splitting the GO market before it achieves the liquidity needed to function efficiently.1
Meanwhile, the commercial horizon for green hydrogen imports into Germany underscores how closely infrastructure timelines are tracking the potential delay. Uniper opened a call for expressions of interest for hydrogen buyers from its planned import terminal at Wilhelmshaven on the North Sea coast on Friday (2026-05-15), targeting up to 2.6 million tonnes per year of ammonia to be cracked into roughly 350,000 tonnes of hydrogen annually and fed into Germany's 9,000km core hydrogen network, the company said. Spokeswoman Julia Grebe told Montel the final investment decision is not expected until early 2030, with commissioning running through to early 2034.2,3
The alignment is sharp. If the hourly GO system launches at roughly the same time as Uniper is taking its FID at Wilhelmshaven, the certification market would be nascent at best when the project needs it to be functioning. Uniper has already signed an offtake agreement for up to 500,000 tonnes per year of green ammonia from AM Green's 1.3GW project in India, a commitment that will ultimately need GO-based verification to satisfy EU market rules governing renewable hydrogen.3,2
The next marker for market participants is the Commission's timetable for completing its hydrogen rules review. If the process extends into 2027 or beyond before revised delegated acts are finalised, the window between regulatory clarity and the likely GO launch shrinks to the point where project developers must price certification risk alongside existing uncertainties around offtake pricing and demand ramp-up timing.4