Academy Fellow Jerry B. Brown recently attended IBER-REN 2021 online, the Iberian Renewable Energy Conference. The Conference focused on the ambitious renewable energy and green hydrogen plans of Portugal and Spain, which comprise the Iberian Peninsula, and featured these headlines:
- EU’s Climate Plan, based on electrification and hydrogen (H2), projects annual production of 10 million tones of green H2 by 2030 – with the long-term EU goal of being GHG-free by 2050.
- In 2020 Portugal and Spain announced ambitious renewable energy targets of 80% and 74%, respectively, to be reached by 2030 via onshore wind and solar PV production.
- Portugal and Spain will be investing heavily in the renewable energy sector as part of the EU Green Deal, including the development of new pipeline plans to transmit green hydrogen from Iberia into northern Europe
- Utilizing 1,350 MW of onshore wind and 3,850 MW of solar PV, Portugal plans green H2 deployment in industry, buildings, transportation, and electric power generation, creating up to 18,450 new jobs.
The HyDeal Ambition Project Vision: Hydrogen is the New Oil
- HyDeal plans to begin delivering green H2 through Europe by 2023 as follows:
- At an all-in target cost of 1.5 euros/kg delivered — including transportation and storage – in order to be fully competitive with fossil fuels.
- Green hydrogen will be produced in Portugal and Spain which at 2,000+ hours per year have the maximum sunlight available in the EU. This is significant as solar energy accounts for 70% of the cost of producing green hydrogen via electrolyzers.
- The cheapest way to transport the green H2 from Iberia to northern Europe will be through the “green spider” of existing natural gas pipelines, and/or through a new 7,700 km grid of dedicated H2 pipelines, from Spain to central Europe.
In this context, the HIGGS Project (Hydrogen in Gas Grids) is building a large-scalke test loop in Aragon, Spain, for the technical evaluation of pipeline proposals, including:
- Using H2 as a flexible fuel to decarbonize the natural gas infrastructure.
- Blending H2 with natural gas and converting to 100% green hydrogen based on pipeline grid and appliance conversion.
- Proving an experimental platform to test various admixtures of H2 injection into the high-pressure natural gas grid.
- Proposing appropriate legal and regulatory recommendations to facilitate transmission.
For additional information, see https://www.iber-ren.com/
