Aragon positioned at the top of the race green hydrogenHe called to be the oil of the 21st century and to create a new economic model. this European Commission It authorized Spain and twelve other countries. The EU will invest €5,200 million in public finance to promote research and innovation on this energy vector, as well as its industrial application and the construction of infrastructures for the battery value chain. Of the seven Spanish projects approved Brusselstwo of them are Aragonese – almost 30% of the total – and thinking about investments close to 200 million euros. One of the initiatives will be run by Endesa, hand in hand with Industrias Químicas del Ebro (IQE); the other is in alliance with Energías de Portugal (EDP) Térvalis.
Teruel group headed by Portuguese power company and businessman Generoso Martín will produce ammonia – the main raw material for production fertilizers– with a new industrial process will use green hydrogen in its production. Through the IAM Caecius project, both companies are trying to obtain sustainable fertilizers from renewable sources.
This project aims to achieve up to 15,000 tons of green ammonia per yearWith Grupo Térvalis, it was able to achieve sustainable fertilizer production of up to 100,000 tons. They explain that, along with other organic fertilizers, they can feed half a million hectares of crops from the Teruel company.. For this, the installed power of the green hydrogen producing electrolyzers must be 25 megawatts and reach an annual production of 3,000 tons.
All this, in addition to promoting the decarbonisation of the agri-food industry, It will mean lowering the cost of fertilizer production, as a large number of participating companies use gas to get it.. About 75 percent of ammonia production facilities, the main raw material of fertilizer production, were stopped due to the increase in natural gas prices. And this has had a serious impact on the agri-food chain, with farmers, ranchers and consumers suffering on the front lines.
On behalf of the Endesa project promoted through Enel Green Power (a renewable subsidiary of Italian parent company Enel), proposes the installation of a 7.2 megawatt (MW) electrolyzer Strength to be found in the Zaragoza town of Alfajarín. The hydrogen generation facility will have renewable electricity generation parks with a total capacity of 115 MW.
The investment to be made in these energy infrastructures is 52 million, Sources from Endesa, a company that plans to spend close to 3,000m euros across Spain for the distribution of green hydrogen, informed this newspaper. There are other initiatives in the community in this area apart from the one linked to IQE. Among them, the proposed investments in Andorra come to the fore. These were submitted to the renewable energy competition opened by the Ministry of Ecological Transition for licensing. Network access for 1,200 MW in Mudéjar nodeis released by closing the thermal. The outcome of this process is expected to be announced this month.
Specifically, the company he works for José Bogás announced in early 2021 It intends to install a 60 megawatt electrolyzer in the same facility to produce green hydrogen with the energy produced in wind and photovoltaic power plants with an installed capacity of 335 MW. He also offered to establish an electrolyzer factory with an investment of 50 million.
Industrias Químicas del Ebro, which has factories in Zaragoza (Malpica), Bilbao and Barcelona, will use hydrogen to work in furnaces and boilers. It’s not currently possible to work with this gas at high temperatures, but research in this industry is the order of the day and they hope innovation can meet that demand at some point in the next decade. However, the Zaragoza firm states that the project will not begin “at least until 2026”.in addition to the fact that hydrogen will be transported by tankers from Alfajarín. Work began in June 2021.
“During the first few months and years, green hydrogen start rolling, investments will need European subsidies”, warns Eduardo Villarroya, Managing Director of Ebro Chemical Industries. In fact, there are more and more multinational companies, and customers are skeptical of those in their business who do not bet on decarbonisation processes. It won’t be Aragon, because it took the lead when these macro projects began to be designed a little over a year ago.