The industrial project for the production of hydrogen in Sines is expected to commence in 2021, according to the Portuguese government´s Great Options Plan (GOP), which foresees the submission of an application for the hydrogen project to the Important Project of Common European Interest (IPCEI) in the second half of this year.
With the aim of turning hydrogen into one of the solutions for decarbonising the economy, the government intends to create a major anchor project on an industrial scale for the production of green hydrogen, in addition to the processing, storage and transportation of the product for both internal and external consumption. Exports are expected to be consolidated through national and European partnerships, based on the sharing of knowledge as a means of ascertaining the needs of the countries involved and for the implementation of distribution networks, as pointed out by Christian Weinberger, Deputy Director-General of the European Community Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs at the “Portugal at the Vanguard of Green Hydrogen in Europe” conference held by ECO and Capital Verde.
COMPETITIVE PRICES
According to the document containing the GOP, this “anchor project is focused on leveraging solar energy, in addition to wind energy, as factors of competitiveness, taking advantage of the strategic location of Sines”. “The procedures applicable to the different aspects of the renewable gas value chain will be approved by the end of 2020, including the licensing of facilities and the regulation of the injection of hydrogen in natural gas networks”. According to Pedro Furtado, director of Regulation and Statistics at REN, “hydrogen should be regarded as a complement to electricity and as a solution for the avoidance of immediate additional investments in gas distribution networks”. For a country like Portugal, “with the potential to produce hydrogen at competitive prices, mixing it with gas constitutes an efficient and low-cost solution with export potential”, he added during his presentation at the conference organised by ECO and Capital Verde.
REDUCING ENERGY DEPENDENCE
The project aims to leverage the competitive advantages of the renewable natural resources existing in Portugal, contributing to the reindustrialisation of the Portuguese and European economies on a more sustainable basis, and to the equilibrium of the Portuguese balance of trade. The objective is to diversify sources and reduce energy dependence, promoting the production and consumption of renewable gases, in particular green hydrogen.
As far as Christian Weinberger is concerned, our country should be far more ambitious with regard to the hydrogen cluster under analysis for Sines. “Portugal is in a privileged position, together with Spain, but it needs to speed things up”, he argues. In his opinion, “companies intending to invest in this area, both Portuguese and others, need to be ambitious”, not least due to the fact the business “represents a significant amount of revenue, as it replaces that of oil”.
1 GW OF CAPACITY BY 2030
Galp, together with EDP, Martifer, REN, Vestas and several other European partners, proposes the assessment of the feasibility of the H2 Sines project, which aims to implement an industrial cluster for the production of green hydrogen based in Sines. The project features an important international dimension, both for its export vocation and for the mobilisation of partners with vast experience in the hydrogen value chain. The first phase is scheduled to include the installation of a 10 MW electrolysis pilot project, which could reach up to 1 GW of capacity by the end of the decade.
