Over 200 companies to promote 650 green hydrogen projects in Spain
Enagás is planning business investments of 4.9 billion euros by 2030
Renewable hydrogen production in Spain will be around 2.5 million tonnes per year in 2030, according to the average scenario estimated by Enagás based on data collected from companies interested in participating in hydrogen transport infrastructure. The company has registered a total of 650 projects, 65% of which are for production, 20% for consumption and the remaining 15% for marketing.
Two hundred and six companies participated in the “call of interest” announced by Enagás in the last quarter of 2023. Three possible scenarios have been extrapolated from the data provided at this non-binding consultation: maximum potential, a “call of interest” and a baseline scenario.
The second scenario, which includes the most mature projects, identifies an electrolysis capacity of 23.3 gigawatts. The estimated demand at that date is one million tonnes per year, compared to the 600,000 tonnes of grey hydrogen consumed today.
New uses of hydrogen
In the maximum potential scenario, production would reach 7.9 tonnes per year, with an electrolysis capacity of 74.3 gigawatts. In the baseline scenario, production would be 1.6 tonnes per year and electrolysis capacity would reach 13.4 gigawatts. The consumption forecast of one million tonnes has been maintained, a figure which, according to Enagás CEO Arturo Gonzalo, reveals that there will already be new uses for this fuel by that date and “Spanish industry will have made progress in replacing grey hydrogen with green hydrogen”.
According to Enagás, these results confirm the infrastructure projects that were presented to the European Commission's call for Projects of Common Interest (PCI): the Cantabrian Coast Corridor, the Ebro Valley Corridor, the Levante Corridor, the Vía de la Plata Corridor connected to the Puertollano Hydrogen Valley, the Guitiriz-Zamora Corridor and two underground storage facilities in Cantabria and the Basque Country. New areas of production and demand aggregation have also been identified and will now be analysed to assess their feasibility.
Europe's first hydrogen hub
All these Spanish infrastructures projects will be connected to the future H2Med corridor, with which Enagás aspires to turn the Iberian Peninsula into Europe's leading hydrogen hub. This corridor, incorporated into the PCIs, also includes the section between Celorico da Beira in Portugal and Zamora (CelZa) and the maritime connection between Barcelona and Marseille (BarMar). This pipeline will be essential for Spain to be able to export its surpluses, which would amount to 1.5 tonnes per year in the average scenario. It will in this way contribute to achieving Europe's target of producing some 10 million tonnes per year out of the 20 million tonnes expected to be consumed by 2030.
The total amount of the projects submitted by Enagás to the European Commission's PIC call would represent a total gross investment of 4.9 billion euros. As for H2Med, Spain's participation will involve a total gross investment of around one billion euros. The final planning will be carried out by the Spanish government.
Photo: Enagás