Iberdrola partners with the Australian Government in one of the largest green hydrogen projects in the world

Iberdrola logo at the company's headquarters in Bilbao. VINCENT WEST (REUTERS)

Iberdrola strengthens its commitment to the renewable energy sector in Australia.

The Spanish electricity company announced on Monday an agreement with the Australian Government and with a local developer, ABEL Energy, to start up one of the largest hydrogen projects in the world.

The joint investment, of 1,100 million euros, aims to produce up to 300,000 tons of green methanol per year, a low-emission fuel —which combines hydrogen with captured carbon dioxide— on which the shipping giants have set their sights.

The investment in Bell Bay Powerfuels, the name given to the future plant, combines both the renewable generation necessary to generate green hydrogen and the necessary investment in electrolysers, the machines that convert energy and water into this fuel, in which A good part of the hopes of decarbonization of the most difficult to electrify sectors rest, such as heavy transport or industry that requires heat in its processes.

According to Iberdrola, the project will mean the creation of 500 jobs, both direct and indirect.

Before announcing this investment, the objective of the Spanish energy company was to reach 35,000 tons of green hydrogen per year in 2025 and multiply that figure by ten by the end of the decade.

One piece of information perfectly summarizes the size of this new commitment to Australia: when fully operational, this project will contribute by itself almost as much as the rest of the 60 announced by Iberdrola to date, located in Spain, the United States and the Australia itself.

In the statement, the utility boasts of having become one of the first companies to "take charge" of the "new technological challenge posed by the production and supply of green hydrogen."

A similar move, he says, to the one he made two decades ago with renewable energy.

Since 2020, when it announced the purchase of Infigen Energy —one of the largest Australian renewable energy generation companies—, Iberdrola has not stopped increasing its commitment to the oceanic country, in which it contemplates investments of between 2,000 and 3,000 million euros in the next years.

Australia is one of the most attractive markets in the world for investment in wind energy and, above all, in photovoltaics.

With a vast potential for wind and sun, there are —and will be— more and more hours of demolition prices.

And generating hydrogen with that cheap energy is one of the best possible alternatives.

The investment in Australia has been made public a few days after the company chaired by Ignacio Sánchez Galán asked to cancel all marketing agreements for one of its flagship projects in the US: a huge offshore wind farm in which it was going to invest almost 4,000 millions.