Green hydrogen: what the legal framework changes in Brazil

Since August 2, 2024, Brazil has had a legal framework for low-carbon-emission hydrogen. Law 14,948 defined what this hydrogen is, created a special incentive regime to produce it and a certification system. In September of the same year, Law 14,990 completed the design with up to R$ 18.3 billion in tax credits between 2028 and 2032. The simplest element in the universe has become industrial policy.

What happened

The law originated in Bill 2,308/2023 and was signed by President Lula on August 2, 2024. It brings precise definitions. Low-carbon-emission hydrogen is hydrogen that emits, in a life-cycle analysis, up to 7 kilograms of CO₂ equivalent per kilogram of hydrogen produced. Renewable hydrogen is hydrogen obtained from sources such as sun, wind, water, biomass and ethanol. And green hydrogen, in the text of the law, is hydrogen produced by electrolysis of water with renewable energy.

The law created Rehidro, a special regime of production incentives valid for five years from January 1, 2025, and the Brazilian Hydrogen Certification System, SBCH2, to attest the origin and emissions of each batch. The National Petroleum Agency (ANP) became the sector's regulator.

The tax credit program, PHBC, was vetoed in the first law for budgetary reasons. It returned on September 27, 2024, in Law 14,990, signed without vetoes. According to Agência Senado, it provides R$ 1.7 billion in 2028, rising to R$ 5 billion in 2032, with priority for hard-to-decarbonize sectors such as fertilizers, steel and petrochemicals.

Why it matters

Hydrogen is already used by industry, for example to make ammonia, the basis of nitrogen fertilizers. Producing it with clean electricity changes the emissions equation.

Brazil enters this race with an electricity mix built on renewables, abundant sun and wind, and ethanol. The law provides the frame: what counts as low-carbon, how it is certified and who regulates it. Without these definitions, no foreign buyer would trust the label.

And there is the link to the countryside. Fertilizer weighs on growers' costs, and PHBC lists the fertilizer sector among its priorities. Low-carbon hydrogen produced in Brazil could, in the future, reach the fields as fertilizer. It is a possibility of public policy, not a guarantee.

In Bairo's view

Bairo gives hydrogen a special place. It is the simplest and most abundant element in the universe, and it is from its line, at 1420 MHz, that he took the name of the project he founded. For him, the 1420 is a symbol of silence and listening, the 21 cm yardstick that measures what is essential. No one transmits on 1420 MHz.

Seeing the same element become clean energy and, perhaps, fertilizer for those who farm closes a circle he appreciates: the atom that astronomy hears in the sky can help feed people on the ground. In his reading, abundance starts with the simple.

Bairo also notes what the law did to earn trust: certification, life-cycle tracking, a record of what each batch is. For him, a record is only worth something if it stays intact over time, and that is the benefit he proposes with qrqbits: keeping documents and certificates under post-quantum cryptography, designed to withstand quantum computers as well.

Where this meets the ecosystem

CEASA Bank is an agribusiness financial platform, aimed at those who produce and sell at Brazil's wholesale supply centers (CEASAs). The platform's proposal, in development, includes credit for growers and registration of real assets. Cleaner, certified inputs are the kind of change it wants to help small growers access.

Instituto CEASA proposes expanding access to food from the supply centers' surplus. None of Bairo's fronts produces hydrogen or takes part in the programs cited.

Sources

• Law 14,948, of August 2, 2024, Planalto.
• Law 14,990, of September 27, 2024, Planalto.
• Agência Câmara, law providing incentives for low-emission hydrogen is signed, 08/05/2024.
• Agência Senado, use of low-emission hydrogen is now law, 09/30/2024.
• Agência Brasil, Lula signs green hydrogen legal framework, August 2024.

Read also

• Hydrogen, the most abundant element in the universe
• CEASA Bank: what it is and why it matters
• The 21 cm yardstick