Belgium

This report aims to summarise the status of the European hydrogen policy landscape. It is based on the information available at the European Hydrogen Observatory (EHO) website the leading source of data on hydrogen in Europe. The data presented in this report is based on research conducted by Hydrogen Europe until the end of July 2024 but also goes beyond this timeline for major policies legislations or standards implemented recently. This report builds upon the previous version published in April 2024 which reflected data as of August 2023 providing updated insights on European policies and legislation national strategies national policies and legislation and codes and standards. Interactive data dashboards can be accessed on the website: https://observatory.cleanhydrogen.europa.eu/ The EU policies and legislation section provides insights into the main European policies and legislation relevant to the hydrogen sector which are briefly summarized on content and their potential impact to the sector. The national hydrogen strategies chapter offers a comprehensive examination of the hydrogen strategies adopted in Europe. It summarizes the quantitative indicators that have been published (targets and estimates) and provides brief summaries of the different national strategies that have been adopted. The section referring to national policies and legislation focuses on the policy framework measures incentives and targets in place that have an impact on the development of the respective national hydrogen markets within Europe. The codes and standards section provides information on current European standards and initiatives developed by the standardisation bodies including CEN CENELEC ISO IEC OIML The standards are categorised according to the different stages of the hydrogen value chain: production distribution and storage and end-use applications.

This report includes information on European training programmes educational materials and the trends and patterns of research and innovation activity in the hydrogen sector with data of patent registrations and publications. It is based on the information available at the European Hydrogen Observatory (EHO) website (https://observatory.cleanhydrogen.europa.eu/) the leading source of hydrogen data in Europe. The data presented in this report is based on research conducted until the end of August 2024. The training programmes section provides insights into major European training initiatives categorized by location. It allows filtering by type of training focus area and language. It covers a wide range of opportunities such as vocational and professional trainings summer schools and Bachelor's or Master's programmes. The education materials chapter summarizes the publicly accessible educational materials available online. Documents can be searched by educational level by course subject by language or by the year of release. The section referring to research and innovation activity analyses trends and patterns in the hydrogen sector using aggregated datasets of patent registrations and publications by country.

This report assesses the market readiness of zero-emission heavy-duty vehicles and the required infrastructure to meet the 45% emission reduction targets set by the revised CO2 standards by 2030. Achieving these goals requires the widespread adoption of zero-emission vehicles and a robust recharging and hydrogen refuelling infrastructure Three main aspects are investigated: the market readiness of the vehicles considering both the demand and supply side the corresponding infrastructure requirements and the barriers. Building on the inputs of the stakeholders a ‘study scenario’ is developed. This scenario shows a concrete picture of what the zero-emission heavy-duty vehicle fleet and its infrastructure requirement could look like by 2030. There are however key barriers that need to be overcome such as high total cost of ownership limited electricity grid capacity lengthy permitting processes and uncertainty in hydrogen availability and pricing. Stakeholders also emphasize the importance of policy drivers such as emissions trading systems and tolling and tax reforms to stimulate demand. In conclusion achieving the 2030 targets demands a coordinated approach involving manufacturers operators and policymakers to address infrastructure gaps market barriers and policy incentives ensuring the transition to a zero-emission HDV fleet.

Dual-fuel engines are a way of transitioning the marine sector to carbon-neutral fuels like hydrogen and methanol. For the development of these engines accurate simulation of the combustion process is needed for which calculating the pilot’s ignition delay is essential. The present work investigates novel methodologies for calculating this. This involves the use of chemical kinetic schemes to compute the ignition delay for various operating conditions. Machine learning techniques are used to train models on these data sets. A neural network model is then implemented in a dual-fuel combustion model to calculate the ignition delay time and is compared using a lookup table or a correlation. The numerical results are compared with experimental data from a dual-fuel medium-speed marine engine operating with hydrogen or methanol from which the method with best accuracy and fastest calculation is selected.