European energy bourse to launch green hydrogen index on May 24

European energy bourse EEX, a subsidiary of Deutsche Boerse, is publishing a green hydrogen index, called HYDRIX, as of Wednesday, May 24, its chief executive Peter Reitz announced on Tuesday.

The move is part of EEX’s plan to scale up price discovery in future markets for renewable energy, Reitz added.

“Hydrix will unveil information about actually traded prices for green hydrogen, produced with electricity from renewable energy sources,” Reitz told Reuters in an interview on the sidelines of the annual E-World trade fair, where the announcement was made.

“Clear price signals are the basis for the market ramp-up and further investments in the hydrogen economy.” he added.

Germany along with other EU countries are seeking to produce and import hydrogen as part of the bloc’s efforts to transition to a lower carbon economy.

Unlike grey hydrogen which is used by industrial processes from gas, hydrogen that comes from renewables can become a storage medium to complement future green power production, which Germany hopes to supply 80 percent of electricity by 2030.

EEX is continental Europe’s leading electricity and natural gas exchange. It is linking big producers and consumers to its platforms and clearing functions in maturities that in power extend up to 10 years.

The European energy bourse also trades emission allowances, freight, and agricultural products, among others.

Hydrix will be publicly available on the EEX transparency platform each week, expressed in euros per megawatt hour (MWh).

Initial, “critical mass” contributors were employed from a working group of over 100 companies that assisted in developing the EEX hydrogen product design, and it hoped to draw on successively more.

“We have built-in security measures to prevent the index from being manipulated,” Reitz further added.

The MWh metric is comparable with other EEX products and is set to help build an intersection to EEX guarantee-of-origin products that certify the renewable qualities of power and hydrogen.