2023-09-08 08:16:13
Spain aspires to become the first large green hydrogen hub in the world and to be the protagonist of what is expected to be a new energy revolution to promote decarbonisation. Energy and industrial groups already have a ‘megacartera‘ of almost a hundred renewable hydrogen production projects – which use electricity from renewable energies for generation – spread throughout the country. And the Government has already planned a network of large pipeline corridors to transport the new green gas both within the country and to Europe.
Faced with the flood of business projects being prepared and the billion-dollar investments that the construction of large hydroducts will require, Spain is launching the first major market test to find out the ireal interest of energy companies to produce green hydrogen and the big industry to consume it.
Enagas, the manager of the Spanish gas system and gas pipeline network operator, is preparing to activate the process to measure for the first time tentatively the volume of supply and demand that green hydrogen could have in the Spanish market and check the willingness of energy and industry to use the trunk corridors to transport the hydrogen that they intend to build in the coming years. Next week, Enagás will present the characteristics and objectives of the ‘macrotest’ to hydrogen producers, industrial consumers, energy marketers and market intermediaries.
X-ray of the future boom
After the public presentation, the group will open a ‘call for interest’ for producers and consumers to submit non-binding offers to use the future tube network. It will be the first hydrogen supply and demand matching mechanism in the Spanish market, although for the moment it will not be binding on the companies.
“We need to have a more precise x-ray to know where the opportunity for the production and consumption of renewable hydrogen is in Spain,” explains the CEO of Enagás, Arturo Gonzalo Aizpiri, at the VIII Energy Forum organized by El Economista. “Initial projects must be finalized to have more precision about operating dates, commercial information and indicative prices.” The group will announce the results of this first ‘call for interest’ in the first quarter of next year.
Attracting customers from the tubes
Throughout 2024, another process will open to collect now binding offers from companies (known as ‘open season’) and which will effectively mean the beginning of attracting customers for future hydroducts. A kind of pre-sale of the capacity of the tubes to transport hydrogen from the production centers and to the industrial centers that will consume it.
That of green hydrogen-which uses electricity from renewable energy for its generation – is set to be one of the next big shocks in the energy sector in a few years, with the aim of replacing natural gas with a green gas without emissions in economic sectors that have difficulty electrifying their processes.
Enagás has spent years working on the design of the so-called Spanish hydrogen backbone, which includes the construction of large internal transport corridors and also international connections for some 7,000 million euros. Its expansion and development are plannedas production and demand for green hydrogen grow, which does not produce CO2 emissions as it is obtained with electricity from only renewable energies.
Internal corridors and H2Med
The market test that is now starting is designed to check the interest in using the network of internal brokers to move hydrogen within Spain. Spain has planned the construction of two large internal green hydrogen transport corridors and has submitted a petition to the European Commission for them to be recognized as green hydrogen transport projects. common interest of the EU and thus receive European funds to finance the necessary investments.
It is a great corridor that will unite Huelva, Puertollano (Ciudad Real), Zamora and Gijón and another that will connect Gijón, Barcelona and Cartagena. In addition, the Executive is also seeking EU funding to build two underground hydrogen storage facilities in saline cavities in Cantabria and the Basque Country. Enagás estimates that investments of 4,670 million euros will be necessary for the domestic installations.
The network of internal corridors will be used to move hydrogen between production and consumption centers, but will also feed the future great connection with Europe. Spain, France and Portugal have agreed to promote the first major hydrogen corridor in the European Union and have subsequently also added Germany to the initiative. A pharaonic project, called H2Med and with planned investments of almost 2.5 billion euros.
The original plan agreed between Madrid, Paris and Lisbon was to link the three countries with a corridor with two sections that are expected to be operational between 2028 and 2030. One section will link Spain with Portugal (between Celorico da Beira and Zamorawith an investment of 350 million) and the other with France (between Barcelona and Marseille, with an underwater tube that will cost 2,135 million). After also adding Berlin, the network of tubes will extend across French soil until reaching Germany and the aim is to end up deploying them to other countries in northern and central Europe.
A hundred projects
The Spanish groups have specific plans to build a total of 94 green hydrogen production plants before 2030, with a combined power of electrolyzers (which carry out the process that allows the hydrogen molecules to be separated from water) of almost 17,200 megawatts (MW), according to the latest updated data collected by the Chair of Hydrogen Studies of the Universidad Pontificia Comillas.
The combined power of the portfolio of projects designed by energy and industrial groups is 56% above the objective set by the Ministry for the Ecological Transitionled by the acting vice president Teresa Ribera, in the new version of the National Integrated Energy and Climate Plan (PNIEC) that has yet to be approved by Brussels.
The revised green ‘megaplan’ contemplates a forecast that Spain will reach 2030 with a power of electrolisis to produce 11,000 MW green hydrogen. A new goal that already almost triples the modest objective of only 4,000 MW that was proposed in the previously approved Hydrogen Roadmap.
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