Spain wants to be the European leader in hydrogen produced exclusively from renewable energy. green hydrogen. With plenty of sun and wind and wide open spaces to house these energy sources, the country’s ambition is to export the gas to the rest of the continent.
As solar energy prices continue to fall, Spain is committed to rapidly building a supply chain for sectors of the economy that require hydrogen for industrial processes.and they said they had a harder time quitting using fossil fuels.
Critics of this goal warn that there is not enough renewable energy capacity to produce green hydrogen that can replace natural gas and coal for petrochemical, steel and agricultural production.
But supporters of this strategy trust the country’s plans for it. Get off to a heady start to take your place in the emerging green hydrogen economy. The International Energy Agency estimated in December that Spain would represent half of Europe’s growth in renewable capacity devoted to hydrogen production.
“The point of the rush is to make it seem like everyone is vying to be the first to export green hydrogen.”says Alejandro Núñez-Jiménez, an expert on green hydrogen policy at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich. “Once you set up the energy infrastructure, it will stay there for decades. So it’s really a first-come, first-served game that’s been controlling the situation for years,” he adds.
Puertollano green hydrogen plant
An example of the potential of green hydrogen can be seen in Puertollano (Castilla-La Mancha), a former mining town that now houses a large industrial park where the company is located. Iberdrola and fertilizer manufacturer Fertiberia have partnered to create the world’s first carbon-neutral plant food.. The fertilizer will one day be applied to malted barley and the barley will be used to make the Heineken company’s first “green malt” beverage.
Etienne Strijp, head of Heineken Spain, highlighted the challenge of removing carbon from the agricultural process. “Being carbon neutral throughout our value chain represents a major challenge,” says the company’s plan to produce green malt.
Puertollano green hydrogen plant, Europe’s largest operating plant, currently in pilot phase. Iberdrola owns the 100-megawatt solar panels that power the electrolyzers responsible for separating the oxygen in the water from the hydrogen. Large hydrogen storage tanks then transport the gas through pipelines to Fertiberia, where it is used to produce ammonia, the key chemical in nitrogen fertilizers.
Synthetic fertilizers are currently a highly polluting product.. A recent study showed that fertilizers emit 2.6 gigatons of carbon equivalent per year, or more than global aviation and shipping combined. A third of these emissions come from fertilizer production in plants like Fertiberia.
“We have green hydrogen for these hard-to-convert industries so we can achieve the goal of a fully decarbonised economy,” said Javier Plaza de Agustín, who heads Iberdrola’s green hydrogen division.
The plant has the capacity to reduce Fertiberia’s emissions by only 10%Therefore, most of the hydrogen from the fertilizer company continues to be extracted from natural gas via “gray” hydrogen (derived from hydrocarbons as opposed to green hydrogen from renewable energies). However, the company plans to be 100% carbon neutral by 2035.
Two big challenges await
In these early stages of development, there are several challenges facing green hydrogen in Spain.
The first is cost. Fertiberia’s managing director, Javier Goñi, points out that green hydrogen technology still does not deliver a profitable end product.
Spanish companies are pushing for EU subsidies, similar to the recent $750 million announcement for hydrogen research and development projects in the US. They argue that subsidies are necessary to grow the market so that economies of scale make zero-carbon products competitively costly.
“We are at such an early stage right now that We need this help from public authorities to fill the funding gap.”indicates Plaza de Agustín. “Without that, it’s hard to invest 20 or 25 years in a factory without knowing what’s going to happen.”
The European Union executive commission has recommended that member states produce 10 million metric tons of renewable hydrogen and import another 10 million metric tons by 2030. Last month, the European Commission announced measures to create an intra-EU hydrogen market and assess infrastructure needs.
However The second problem is that the EU’s promise to increase supply comes without knowing where the demand really is, discusses hydrogen expert Núñez-Jiménez.
“Spain and Portugal may produce a lot of green hydrogen and demand in Central Europe may be realized, but the link between supply and demand is not yet available,” he said. Developing the infrastructure to transport this gas from the Iberian Peninsula to the center of Europe should be a priority.”
Hydrogen, the lightest element on the periodic table, is difficult to store and transport and is highly flammable. That’s why Iberdrola built its hydrogen plant right next to the Fertiberia plant to minimize leaks. Once Iberdrola and its competitors have met Spain’s limited hydrogen needs, such as beer production, they will need to look beyond their borders to continue growing.
Few companies and little demand
“Everyone wants to be involved in hydrogen production,” said Fertiberia’s Goñi. “But today there are basically a few companies and a few business sectors that can absorb large amounts of hydrogen.”
Alliances are key. The ammonia created with Iberdrola’s green hydrogen at the Fertiberia plant can be used to transport the hydrogen in liquid form before being converted to gas.
LThe decarbonization of hydrogen for industry has gained greater importance in Europe since the Russian invasion of Ukraine.. Russia is the world’s second-largest natural gas producer, currently powering most of the world’s hydrogen production.
Spain, France, Germany and Portugal have agreed to build a hydrogen pipeline to transport around 2 million metric tons of hydrogen to France by 2030, 10% of the EU’s estimated hydrogen needs.
environmental repairs
But not everyone in Spain wants a hydrogen plant just around the corner.. Land use for renewable energy facilities and a ratio of 9:1 water per pound of green hydrogen produced can be challenging for regions suffering from severe and prolonged drought.
Pere Virgili, mayor of the northeastern coastal town of Roda de Bera, rejected an initial proposal last year from a green hydrogen developer, which would cover 42 hectares with a combination of solar panels and wind turbines to power its electrolyzers.
It’s not that we’re against renewable energy, but you have to see if you really respect the environment by using so much water and land to create it,” he said, adding that the project will only create 100 jobs.
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