This chapter investigates the production of renewable hydrogen by electrolysis, namely the permits that are required to put an electrolyser on the ground. This will be investigated with the help of a case study on Finland. In Finland, permitting practices for renewable hydrogen electrolysers are only just starting to develop. Permitting procedures are still fragmented and there is no so-called one-stop-shop for hydrogen electrolyser permits. Several different permits by different authorities, both municipal and state authorities, are required and the permit procedures are usually independent of each other. These complicated permit procedures can be a challenge for setting up new hydrogen electrolysers as the pitfalls and challenges of the permit process, namely complicated bureaucracy as well as long permit handling times, can deter hydrogen investors. The chapter describes possible solutions to this problem and also sketches the actions taken by the government to tackle it. The conclusion is that a number of improvements to the system are currently being implemented, but their actual effects are yet to be seen and challenges still exist.

The Oceania region, particularly Australia and New Zealand, has recently welcomed a suite of strategies and policies to support the development of hydrogen. Australia’s current National Hydrogen Strategy strives to position the country as a top three global exporter of hydrogen by 2030. New Zealand’s Interim Hydrogen Roadmap aims to utilise hydrogen to decrease domestic emissions, foster economic development, and enhance energy security while supporting its 100 per cent renewable electricity by 2030 target. To achieve these hydrogen strategies and targets, it is essential to establish enabling regulatory frameworks. Regulation is required to strategically plan, identify, assess, and permit the development of onshore hydrogen production facilities and associated infrastructure, ensuring coexistence with multiple and diverse land uses. The chapter investigates the strategies, policies, and developing planning and licensing regulatory regimes for the development of renewable hydrogen in Australia and New Zealand. Specifically, it examines recent regulatory developments in two Australian states, Western Australia, and South Australia. Regulatory developments in both states are designed to facilitate the assessment and award of hydrogen production licences on Crown-owned pastoral leasehold land. As interest increases in the assessment and structure of hydrogen production licensing on complex land uses, the experiences in Australia and New Zealand provide important legal case studies. These experiences highlight the diverse approaches to planning and permitting hydrogen on pastoral land uses and offer valuable insights to support the development of future hydrogen economies.

The European Union (EU) identified sizeable needs for both local production and imports of renewable hydrogen by 2030, as enshrined in the 2020 EU Strategy on Hydrogen. But how sustainable, exactly, can the production of such huge amounts of renewable hydrogen be? EU lawmakers also decided to require from both EU and non-EU hydrogen producer’s adherence to the sustainability criteria that apply to bioenergy since 2009. The need for sustainability criteria in the context of bioenergy arose from the massive deforestation caused by the production of biofuels, generating greenhouse gases, destroying local biodiversity and linked to human rights violations. This chapter scrutinizes if and to what extent it makes sense to use the analogy to bioenergy for establishing sustainability criteria for renewable hydrogen, as the EU did. It finds that placing the production of renewable hydrogen under this regime is in principle welcome, as it establishes clear thresholds in terms of environmental and social impacts. However, the chapter questions the details of the premise that a system which was tailored to bioenergy may successfully be applied to hydrogen, one-on-one. Additionally, it analyses whether the flaws of the existing sustainability criteria may also extend to renewable hydrogen.