Hydrogen Central

Spain – The Government Increases its Commitment to Hydrogen with New Aid for 74 Million Euros

spain hydrogen

Spain – The Government increases its commitment to hydrogen with new aid for 74 million euros.

Hydrogen advances to become an undisputed protagonist of the Spanish “energy mix” in the coming decades. The Third Vice President of the Government and Minister for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge, Teresa Ribera, announced a new royal decree to promote the production of green hydrogen in the country through the support of four capital goods manufacturing projects necessary for the generation of fuel and its use in the transport sector. 

These initiatives had already been classified by Brussels as being of “community interest” in June of this year, but the new measure grants a “nominal subsidy” of 74 million euros that aims to cover the difference between the financing provided by the European Union and the financing public that they may receive in the future. The objective of the Executive is to ensure that the projects “are viable and that they can be implemented as quickly as possible in this great race that represents the hydrogen economy

The projects are linked to the industrial development and parts necessary for generation. Among them are three H2B2 , Nordex and Sener projects for the manufacture of electrolysers, a key piece for the generation of hydrogen. A fourth initiative, promoted by the IVECO firm, aims to develop hydrogen-powered heavy transport vehicles.

Teresa Ribera, said:

We must develop the regulatory measures that allow us to take advantage of it, facilitating its transport and the certification of renewable origin.

Ribera bet, while stressing that Spain is at the forefront of development worldwide. The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, had advanced this news on Monday and stressed that 20% of the green hydrogen projects announced so far are located in Spain .

The Executive had already expressed its intention to position itself in this field with the submarine connection project between Barcelona and Marseille , which has a budget of more than 2,850 million euros. Sánchez celebrated in December that this would be “the first great hydrogen corridor in the European Union.” In addition, the president specified that the pipelines, which would be ready by 2030, will transport 10% of the block’s expected hydrogen consumption, estimated at two million tons per year.

The importance placed on Catalonia with this great infrastructure is not to the detriment of the rest of the country, since multiple communities bid to be the center of investment in Spain. The four projects that Ribera referred to this Monday will take place in Seville, Valladolid, Barcelona and Madrid, as well as the communities of Asturias, Navarra and the Basque Country. 

The government had already advanced its roadmap, published in 2020, which was committed to consolidating centers that concentrate production, transformation, and consumption through economies of scale. The official plan already provided for an update every three years, based on the evaluation of progress and the quantification of its impact. The new financing is added to the more than 1,555 million euros dedicated to the sector within the Next Generation funds .

The minister also highlighted that Spain is among the 10 most active European countries in hydrogen patents . The report carried out jointly by the European Patent Office (EPO) and the International Energy Agency (IEA) shows that environmentally friendly hydrogen technologies accounted for 76% of hydrogen-derived patents in Spain in the last ten years, which is a much higher proportion than that registered by other European countries (64% in Germany, 55% in France, 59% in the Netherlands).

European framework

Fuel regulation at the community level is still pending. The European Council advanced at the end of 2022 in a consultation document for the development of this technology, focused on the vertical disaggregation of network operators, the application of discounts and the mixture with other fuels. 

But two great challenges remain: the deadlines for the transition of the market and the regulation on its forms of production and the different “colors” of this energy vector. France is fighting for pink hydrogen, produced from nuclear energy, while other countries like Spain are bidding for alternatives generated from wind or photovoltaic sources.

READ the latest news shaping the hydrogen market at Hydrogen Central

The Government increases its commitment to hydrogen with new aid for 74 million euros, January 10, 2022

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