“Portugal, together with Spain, is in a privileged position to invest in the production of green hydrogen”. This is the belief of Christian Weinberger, Deputy Director-General of the European Commission Directorate-General for the Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and Small Businesses. This is what he said at the “Portugal at the Forefront of Green Hydrogen in Europe” conference organised by ECO and Green Capital, adding that our country should be far more ambitious with regard to the hydrogen cluster under analysis for Sines, and that we should go ahead right now as we are fully capable of producing green hydrogen largely from wind and solar energy.
COMPETITIVE PRICES
“Start now, start small, seize the opportunity and prepare everything for when the hydrogen market grows”, said Christian Weinberger, arguing that “whoever manages to get into the business quickly, and in a serious manner, will capture the market”.
“For a country like Portugal, with great potential for producing green hydrogen at competitive prices, mixing it with other gases in the distribution networks represents an efficient, low-cost solution for society, which could contribute to the hydrogen value chain as production increases and logistics and distribution networks are being built” said Pedro Furtado, director of Regulation and Statistics at REN, during his presentation. In turn, Francisco Pablo de la Flor Garcia, a director of Enagas, a company that develops, operates and maintains gas infrastructure, added that “in addition to building new gas distribution networks, we need to readapt the existing infrastructure to deliver hydrogen in concentrations of 0% to 100%”. As far as this official is concerned, the EU carbon neutrality goal, set for 2050, will not be achieved without the existence of natural, synthetic gas and hydrogen.
JOINT STRATEGY
At the same event, at which those in attendance sought out leads on launching a hydrogen economy, the Minister for the Environment and Climate Action, Matos Fernandes, said that he hopes to bring news, by the end of the year, on the joint strategy of the Iberian Peninsula countries for the production of renewable gases. He also said that the government is due to issue, this month, within the scope of the Operational Programme for the Sustainable Use of Resources (POSEUR, by its acronym in Portuguese), the first notification for candidates for the tender to support the production of green hydrogen and other renewable gases to the amount of 40 million euros. The funds, which are part of the government's Recovery and Resilience Plan, comprise a total of 200 million euros for the promotion of the production of renewable gases to be implemented in the national grid by 2025.
Christian Weinberger also said that Portugal can produce green hydrogen at half the price of other countries in the continent such as the Czech Republic, for example. “Even when considering the cost of the pipeline network, which will be built to distribute the product, the hydrogen produced in Portugal will still cost 25% less”, he explained, emphasising that companies should seize this opportunity to invest in the production of green hydrogen in countries in southern Europe, such as Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece.
430 BILLION EUROS OF INVESTMENT BY 2030
The European Clean Hydrogen Alliance (ECHA), created by the European Union in March this year, is in charge of Europe's new industrial strategy and aims to help slow down decarbonisation, upholding its global leadership in the sector. It will establish a support and investment agenda designed to expand the hydrogen value chain across Europe, estimated at 430 billion euros by the end of this decade.
