Ukraine’s Naftogaz and Energoatom on 5 October signed a memorandum on joint work on the implementation of a hydrogen strategy for a climate neutral Europe. “We are seeing a rapid increase in interest in hydrogen around the world and a rapid development of the international hydrogen market. Ukrainian hydrogen production may reach 40 GW in the foreseeable future,” said Andrey Kobolev, Naftogaz Board Chairman.
The priority areas of cooperation between Naftogaz and Energoatom will be the production of hydrogen - through the use of existing facilities in Ukraine and the creation of new ones, as well as storage of hydrogen. The memorandum establishes a framework for strategic cooperation and partnership between energy companies on issues of common interest. These include the development and modernisation of the energy sector of Ukraine, integrated with the European market; decarbonisation of the energy system; unlocking the potential of Ukraine's hydrogen energy; improving energy efficiency and ensuring the development of markets, trade and cooperation in the field of hydrogen energy.
The parties will implement the principles of sustainable development in Ukraine and take measures to transition to a climate-neutral circular hydrogen economy by 2050. “Using the existing opportunities and creating new green capacities for the production of hydrogen, as well as using the existing and building new storage facilities with foreign partners, we can achieve these goals,” said Kobolev.
“We represent large companies and want to combine our potential for the further development of the industry and the implementation of new promising projects for the use of hydrogen technologies, which, no doubt, will serve the state interests. The need to develop hydrogen technologies is recognized at the EU level in several documents: the European Hydrogen Strategy, the European Agreement of December 11, 2019, and the Paris Agreement of November 2016,” said acting President of Energoatom, Petr Kotin.
“At the same time, experts understand that the use of hydrogen will make sense only if this hydrogen is produced by environmentally friendly generation. Nuclear power plants are ideal for solving this problem, since nuclear generation has advantages over others due to its environmental friendliness and high concentration of power generated by the energy. Therefore, it is the nuclear power industry that should become the main source of pure hydrogen for the future market.”
