by Stefano Secondino
Hydrogen is used for the ecological transition: to decarbonise heavy transport (trucks, buses, trains, ships), for which electric batteries are too heavy, and to "clean up" industrial activities with strong greenhouse gas emissions (steel mills, cement factories) . The problem is that the supply chain in Italy is still to be done: there are no factories, there are no adequate gas pipelines, there are no distributors or even vehicles that use this fuel. The Recovery Plan can give a big boost to the sector: but making good projects is useless, if the procedures that now block all the works in Italy are not simplified.
ANSA today brought together all the main Italian hydrogen players in a webinar to discuss the role of this gas in the ecological transition.
"For hydrogen there is a lack of infrastructure, but that is still the minor problem - explained Minister Roberto Cingolani -. We have technologies. The most difficult challenge is how to speed up the times to implement them. The challenge of regulations, procedures, that's what matters most now. " To have green hydrogen (the one with zero emissions, produced by the electrolysis of water), you need a lot of renewable energy.
"The European target predicts that we will reach 72% in 2030 - said the minister -. It means installing 60-70 gigawatts of renewables in ten years, 6 or 7 a year, when so far we install a tenth of what we plan, a cause of the procedures ". According to Cingolani, "the EU has asked us not only for projects, but also for process reform. With ministers Brunetta and Giovannini we are working on the chain of permits, to speed up procedures".
For the president of the Arera (the public authority that regulates the utilities markets), Stefano Besseghini, the role of hydrogen will be "in energy storage for large consumers, not in retail". Giulia Monteleone, head of research on this gas at Enea, explains that "the goal now is to lower the production costs of green hydrogen: today it costs 3-4 times that produced by methane", which emits CO2 in the process.
In the meantime, however, BMW, already a pioneer among car manufacturers in the sector, will launch a hydrogen X5 next year, and from 2025 an entire range, as announced by the president and CEO of BMW Italy, Massimiliano Di Silvestre. Italy has strong industrial capabilities across the entire supply chain. Italgas, explained Pier Lorenzo Dell'Orco, CEO of Italgas Reti, wants to invest 15 million to build a hydrogen production and research center in Cagliari: it will be the first in the EU to distribute it in domestic networks, mixed with methane. Snam claims that 70% of its pipelines are already suitable for hydrogen, and focuses on trains: Snam's vice president for Hydrogen, Cosma Panzacchi recalled that the group has provided 150 million for a supply network for non-electrified railways (5,000 km in Italy).The first hydrogen convoy will leave in 2024 in Val Camonica, managed by Ferrovie Nord Milano, which has bought 14 trains from Alstom and which, underlined the president Andrea Gibelli, will initially focus on blue hydrogen for a short period, and then switch broke. Maire Tecnimont wants to produce hydrogen from plastic waste in old refineries, and thinks of a plant serving Ilva in Taranto: "We presented 10 projects to be included in the PNRR, to be built in old refineries, from the North to the South of the country", said the president Fabrizio Di Amato. The Brenner motorway has created the first (and so far only) distributor in Italy, in Bolzano. But, explains the CEO, Diego Cattoni, he wants to install them all over the network, making it a "green corridor". And Edison is also working onhydrogen to decarbonise transport and industry. The intent, says Giovanni Brianza, Executive Vice President Strategy, is to accompany the players in the sector in "a path of decarbonization and also towards competitiveness". On the other hand, the development of hydrogen will follow various paths, for industry, heavy goods, transport but also for SMEs as recalled by the director of the Sustainable Energy Center of the Bruno Kessler Foundation.transport but also SMEs as recalled by the director of the Sustainable Energy Center of the Bruno Kessler Foundation.transport but also SMEs as recalled by the director of the Sustainable Energy Center of the Bruno Kessler Foundation.
Minister Cingolani reiterates that the goal is to have all green, zero-emission hydrogen by 2030. But if this goal is not achieved, even blue hydrogen, produced from methane and with the underground storage of the emitted carbon, "is an acceptable intermediate solution". For Cingolani, however, a change of mentality is also needed: "Everyone wants to be green, but then they don't want the wind turbine in front of their house, or they want to continue using social networks that produce so many emissions. The climate emergency requires sacrifice, we have to put everyone something ".