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Baptized “H2Med”, the pipeline project which aims to develop the use of hydrogen in Europe will be extended to Germany. This was announced on Sunday January 22 by French President Emmanuel Macron during a joint conference with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. Both were reunited in Paris to celebrate the sixtieth anniversary of the reconciliation treaty between Paris and Berlin. The Spanish government has confirmed the agreement reached.
This corridor located under the Mediterranean Sea will transport green hydrogen made from water by electrolysis using a process using renewable energies, from the Iberian Peninsula to France and northern Europe. This infrastructure should transport, each year, some two million tons of hydrogen, or 10% of the estimated hydrogen needs of the European Union.
The project, which should be operational in 2030, should cost two and a half billion euros. But that was without counting the extension to Germany. ” We have decided to expand the H2Med project which, thanks to European funding, links Portugal, Spain and France (…), to Germany, which will be a partner in this infrastructure strategy in terms of hydrogen “, said the French president during a joint press conference with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
This should make it possible to accelerate the decarbonisation of European industry, by giving it access to clean energy, produced on a large scale. But this project raises concerns. Many experts question its economic viability, as green hydrogen is still a fledgling technology. We do not know, in fact, when this market will take off and when we will be able to produce enough of it to export it.
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