The main objective for incentivizing clean hydrogen production and use is to decarbonize our economy. For clean hydrogen to become a climate mitigation solution, the scale of production and use needs to increase sooner rather than later, so that costs begin to fall, markets are created, and widespread adoption can occur. If policymakers determine that scaling clean hydrogen needs to be accelerated in the near term so that it can be a mitigation solution “sooner rather than later”, annual time-matching of RECs should be encouraged as it will trigger more investment in clean hydrogen and result in the cost of clean hydrogen coming down more quickly. Requiring overly restrictive policies too early in the process will only serve to dilute the intent of the 45V credit and introduce additional risk and costs into clean hydrogen production projects and limit the ability for it to play the role it must—to decarbonize our economy.

The following position on the use of environmental attributes related to the Section 45V tax credit represents the spirit of the CHFC’s foundational principles to decarbonize, and to remain technology neutral and focus on reducing carbon intensity across the supply chain.

Click here to access the CHFC Position on Renewable Energy Credits (RECs) Accounting & Additionality.