Germany’s cabinet has adopted draft legislation allowing the widespread deployment of CCS and CCUS, in a move that could spur investment in blue hydrogen production.

The draft law, which will need to be debated further before final adoption, also allows for CCS to abate gas-fired power plants, which the government accepts will continue to play a key role in the energy mix despite the rapid expansion of the country’s renewables sector. CCS for coal-fired power plants is ruled out.

The draft law calls for the expansion at pace of a CO₂ pipeline network and allows for the development of onshore CO₂ storage, as well as offshore facilities.

“This law has created the possibility of producing blue hydrogen in Germany for the first time, said Kerstin Andreae, chair of the executive board at the BDEW, an industry association for the energy and water sectors. “This is of key importance for the hydrogen ramp-up."

Germany’s national hydrogen strategy is focused on the scale-up green hydrogen production, as well as imports, with little discussion of blue.

The cabinet’s draft law confirms the coalition government’s readiness to back CCS to the same extent as the previous coalition, which had attempted to pass similar legislation before losing power earlier this year. The new draft is designed to replace much of the 2012 law, which does not allow for CO2 storage or carbon capture at scale.

The move also aligns Germany with the EU’s ambitions to scale up CCS as a key part of its strategy to reach net-zero emissions.

“This is an important milestone on the road to decarbonising industry, paving the way for the use of technologies that were previously not possible in Germany,” said German economy minister Katherina Reiche.

Alongside the new legal framework, the government is expected to finalise a comprehensive carbon management strategy, building largely on work undertaken by the previous government. The strategy is likely to include ratification of an annex to the London Protocol—an international set of rules on the cross-border movements of waste—allowing Germany to export captured CO₂ to storage sites in location such as the North Sea.

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Author: Stuart Penson