With green vee and also from Valencia.
H2Ports is the project that will make the port of this city the first in Europe with vehicles powered by renewable hydrogen to reduce polluting emissions by 2023. A pioneering action that is just one example of the existing interest in this technology being the engine of recovery and place Spain as a country of reference.
The hydrogen roadmap: a commitment to renewable hydrogen
is the document approved last October that sets the objectives “to promote this key sustainable energy vector for Spain to achieve climate neutrality, with a 100% renewable electricity system, no more afternoon of 2050 ”, explained Teresa Ribera, Minister for the Ecological Transition and fourth vice-president of the Government, in the forum
Renewable hydrogen: an opportunity for Spain
, convened by Miteco in November.
"We can be leaders in this and thus reinforce our sustainable ambition", assured the President of the Executive, Pedro Sánchez, in said event, influencing the 8,900 million that will be invested until 2030 to reach 4 GW of installed power of electrolysers through sources renewable;
that is, 10% of the target set in the EU.
All Spanish energy companies have presented investment plans within the European Next Generation
Since then, the "green, hope" thing has never been more real.
And the letter ache, supposedly silent, has come to say a lot as the initial of the word and symbol of its atom (H).
The first element of the periodic table - "a colorless, odorless and tasteless gas" - wants to lead decarbonization.
Even more so now that the pandemic urges us to back up a resounding recovery.
More information
Green hydrogen fever hatches in industry and parquet
How to choose the future Amazon of green hydrogen
To start and solve the difficulty of transportation, in July 2020 eleven European gas infrastructure companies - including Enagás - proposed in the report Gas for Climate's European hydrogen backbone, a hydrogen backbone network in Europe that connects the centers supply and demand (see map).
For their part, energy companies have not been able to better pick up the glove.
Although, already before, about thirty proposals and investments destined to it were known.
European 'hub'
Valencia will be the first European port destination with hydrogen-powered vehicles in 2023. GettyImages
However, right now, only Enagás counts "more than 30 projects by the hand of 50 partners", indicates Antonio Llardén, its president.
Among these, with Naturgy in La Robla (León), “which will promote the largest Spanish hydrogen plant”, and also in Gijón (Asturias);
in Green Hysland (Mallorca), with Acciona, Cemex and Redexis (which will invest 60 million in five years), "which will turn the country into a hub in southern Europe, with the first Mediterranean project selected to receive European financing";
and with Repsol at SUN2HY, "which will create its own technology that transforms solar into this other through a photoelectrocatalysis plant".
Repsol is also leading the H24All consortium "to develop the first 100 MW alkaline electrolyzer in Europe to be installed in the Petronor complex in the Basque Country, a proposal submitted to the European Green Deal funds", explain company sources.
And coinciding in time, Endesa has announced 23 initiatives for "more than 2,900 million to start up 2,000 MW of renewable power in As Pontes (Galicia), Huelva, Teruel, Almería, Tarragona, Ebro Valley, Compostilla and Seseña, in the peninsular territory, and Tirajana, Granadilla and Alcudia, in the extrapeninsular ”, they detail.
Only Enagás accounts for more than 30 projects led by 50 partners
For its part, Iberdrola, which will operate a hydrogeneration plant in Barcelona to supply the public bus service, also has its mega-plan: 53 projects that will mobilize 2,500 million to achieve a production equivalent to 25% of the national objective, also framed in the program Next Generation EU, within the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan, in which the Government has announced an investment of 1,500 million to promote this clean technology.
And we could continue citing examples in Madrid, Illescas (Toledo), Tenerife, Amorebieta, etc.
Impossible to reflect so much taking of positions.
But, “if the European funds weren't there, would there be so much interest?
It is hard to believe it.
This is to make a virtue of necessity and thus try to revalue the gas sector.
Of course, this energy is called upon to play a crucial role, especially in transportation, but let's not put the cart before the oxen.
And above all, let us trust that the green hydrogen banner will not be removed in order to continue producing that of other colors ”, says Fernando Ferrando, president of the Fundación Renovables.
Figures
Hydrogen plant of the National Hydrogen Center, in Puertollano (Ciudad Real).
25%
of hydrogen consumption in industry will be green.
Its role in the transition is expected to be relevant, as it would allow decarbonizing all sectors and seasonal storage.
10%
of the total quota set by the EU will be assumed by Spain.
An investment of 8,900 million is expected until 2030 to reach 4 GW of installed power of electrolyzers.
25%
of the national production will come from Iberdrola.
The company has just informed Miteco that it has submitted 53 projects (1 GW of electrolyzers) to the Next Generation UE.
From Puertollano (Ciudad Real), considered the future capital of green hydrogen, Carlos Fúnez, head of the open innovation unit of the National Hydrogen Center (CNH2), thinks that “this time it can curdle, not like in the previous crisis that We were disappointed.
This is non-stop, as we are providing a lot of advisory services.
Nobody wants to go into business without knowing you;
but it is not possible to pretend to advance in two years which has a much longer journey ”.
On the walls of this center, a benchmark in Europe for its inclusive nature both for including the entire value chain and for being a private public, there is a quote by Jules Verne that concludes: "Water will be the coal of the future."
At the end of the 19th century it was fiction, today it is almost real.
Aragon, another region with its own hydrogeneration
Members of the Board of Trustees of the Hydrogen Foundation, in Huesca.
The Foundation for the Development of New Hydrogen Technologies in Aragon (FHA) boasts an interesting agenda for 2021, after being awarded the National Energy Globe Award Spain 2020, a prestigious worldwide award that joins previous recognitions.
It started in 2003, when Arturo Aliaga, its president, and Javier Navarro Espada, vice-president, "career officials and of those who have been in this the most," qualifies the second, they knew how to see "the potential of this clean energy and we wanted to prepare the fabric industrial sector in the region in a period that in the end has been fulfilled when we imagined.
A long-distance race that is now resolved in the sprint and that will allow hydrogen to democratize energy, as Jeremy Rifkin says ”, says Navarro Espada.
For this expert, the interest of hydrogen is threefold: “In the electrical, in the thermal and in mobility, thanks to its polyhedral nature and its disconnection from a specific territory.
Everyone can get down to it and adapt their peculiarities ”.
And he shares with Javier Brey, president of the Spanish Hydrogen Association (AeH2), and another "passionate about the subject", as he confesses, the need for Spanish capital goods to have more weight throughout the value chain.
As an interesting bet, Navarro highlights the hydrogen car, "which is also an electric vehicle and complements other solutions, does not compete with them."
The FHA has its own recharge hydrogenerator at its headquarters in Walqa (Huesca), as does the CNH2, which is now working on the construction of a portable one.
A month ago, Madrid inaugurated the first refueling station for fuel cell electric cars.