The construction and commissioning of the first phase of the “Asturias H2 Valley” project, to which EDP will allocate 244.41 million euros, VAT included, to install 150 megawatts of electrolysers to produce green hydrogen, as announced yesterday by LA NUEVA SPAIN, will involve other investments, such as the construction of gas and water pipelines, as well as renewable energy plants. EDP plans to supply Aboño’s hydrogen through hydroducts to its industrial clients, initially the DuPont chemical plant in the Tamón valley and the Masaveu group’s cement plant in Aboño, to which it will also supply oxygen through an oxyduct. The project also provides for a part of the hydrogen to be used as fuel for group 2 of the Aboño thermal power plant.
In addition, EDP is dealing with the Principality about the construction of a pipeline dedicated to transporting water treated in the Villapérez treatment plant (Oviedo) to Aboño, to be used in electrolysis. They are not the only collateral investments that are linked to this project. EDP contemplates the installation of between 200 and 300 megawatts of renewable energy powerincluding a photovoltaic silar plant also at its Aboño facilities, previously announced by the company.
In addition to photovoltaics, the energy that will supply the 185 megawatts of power planned for the facility (including the energy needed for auxiliary facilities) will come from land-based wind turbines and hydroscrews. The project only foresees the direct connection to one installation, the solar farm planned in Aboño, acquiring the rest of the electricity from the network with a certificate of renewable origin, which will arrive through the Carrió substation, 400 meters away.
The project takes advantage of the existing infrastructures of group 1 of the Aboño coal-fired power plant (among other things it will use its cooling water intake from El Musel). Group 1, whose operation is restricted to a maximum of 500 hours a year, is scheduled to close. The reuse of part of the infrastructures that already exist will make it possible to optimize the costs and execution times of the project; simplify administrative procedures and permits, and significantly reduce environmental impacts.
This first phase of the project will be implemented on 26,000 square meters – next to the Aboño quarry – of the total 120,000 meters occupied by the thermal facilities. It will come into operation in stages between October 2025 and March 2026. It is expected to have 8,307 operating hours per year (7,100 equivalent operating hours at full load).
A second phase is planned, with another 350 megawatts of electrolysers in Aboño that would be operational in 2030.
The EDP project is being developed on land in Gijón and Carreño, through its subsidiary H2 Aboño. The company has already started the environmental processing and has pending the development of detailed engineering. The purchase of equipment, which will take 74% of the budget, will begin in September and the start of the works is expected for June 2024, with a duration of 17 months. The useful life of the facilities is estimated at 30 years and they will generate employment in two municipalities included within the Just Transition zones.
The plant will be operated automatically, using an algorithm that will manage the production of hydrogen depending on the availability of renewable energy and the demand of industrial buyers, controlling the stored stock. The control system will try to minimize the reduction of electricity from renewable energies, maximize hydrogen production, minimize the levelized cost of hydrogen (a variable that indicates what it costs to produce one kilo of green hydrogen) and participate in the auxiliary services market. through the demand response operation.
The civil works necessary for the project will be minimal. Basically the construction of an electrical substation to reduce voltage and modular buildings for production equipment and auxiliary facilities such as gas compressors, water treatment plants and storage tanks.
The hydrogenerates
The initially planned technology – which may vary based on advances in this field – provides for the gases to be generated at atmospheric pressure. Compressors will be installed to supply hydrogen and oxygen to industrial customers, inject the hydrogen into the network, transport it in vehicles or for the hydrogen that the project also provides, with capacity for supply that fuel to 20 trucks or buses and 50 light vehicles per day. This hydrogen refueling station for heavy and light vehicles will be removable for possible transfer in the future to an area closer to consumers.
The AIDS
EDP has already secured a public aid of almost €30 million to start up the Aboño green hydrogen plant after increasing the items it will receive from the Strategic Project for the Economic Recovery and Transformation (PERTE) of Renewable Energies. In addition, the company is waiting for the ratification of the European aid that it will receive after including “Asturias H2 Valley” within the Important Projects of Common European Interest (IPCEI for its acronym in English) and that will be the main economic impulse of the project . The Ministry for the Ecological Transition, through the PERTE for Renewable Energies, had initially approved an aid of 14.2 million euros for the Aboño plant within the line of pioneering and unique renewable hydrogen projects, and another 15 million in the line of large electrolysis demonstrators. However, once the claims period has been resolved, the definitive aid from the first line has risen to almost 14.9 million. The subsidy for the EDP plant in Soto de Ribera has also increased to 6 million euros.
The Masaveu Corporation plan
The “Asturias H2 Valley” project with which EDP will produce green hydrogen in Aboño will supply renewable gas to the Cementos Tudela Veguín factory located in its vicinity, according to sources from the Masaveu Corporation, to which the company belongs. The cement company’s plan is to “progressively replace the consumption of fossil fuels with that of green hydrogen”, as H2 Aboño, a subsidiary of EDP, advances in the development of electrolyzers. In addition, the forecast is that the Tudela Veguín cement plant in the town that gives it its name, in the Oviedo council, will also receive supply of green hydrogen but from the smaller project that EDP is contemplating at the Soto de Ribera plant. The reason is the geographical proximity, which will simplify the logistics of transporting the gas. Cementos Tudela Veguín and EDP have also been collaborating since summer 2020 in the deployment of a self-consumption photovoltaic plant at the former’s factory in La Robla (León). The planned power is 3 megawatts peak (MWp).