Iberdrola Gets EU Funding for Spanish Hydrogen Project

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Written by Martin Lynch, European News Editor for Industrial Info (Galway, Ireland)--Spanish energy major Iberdrola (Bilbao) has secured a loan of 88 million euro (US$93 million) to construct a green hydrogen project in Spain from the European Investment Bank (EIB) and state-owned Official Credit Institute (ICO).

Located in Puertollano, Castilla-La Mancha, the project will involve developing a 100-megawatt (MW) solar photovoltaic plant, a 20-MW electrolyser for producing green hydrogen and a 20-megawatt-hour (MWh) battery energy storage system (BESS). The electrolyser will be able to produce 1,000 tonnes of green hydrogen per year. The project is underway and will be located next to Fertiberia's local ammonia plant which has a production capacity of more than 200,000 tonnes per year. Pipelines have already been installed at the plant that will allow Fertiberia to use the green hydrogen produced. It will reduce natural gas requirements at the plant by more than 10%, and Iberdrola claimed that Fertiberia will be the first European company in the sector to roll out large-scale green ammonia production. In December, the first five of 11 renewable hydrogen storage tanks were delivered to the plant. Weighing in at 77 tonnes, each tank has a volume of 133 cubic meters and measures 23 meters high and 2.8 meters in diameter.

EIB vice-president, Ricardo Mourinho Félix, said: "As the EU's climate bank, the EIB continues to support the building of sustainable infrastructure in Europe to foster the transition to zero net emissions. At this time, especially given the high energy and gas prices in Europe, we at the EIB strongly believe that hydrogen has the potential to play an important role in boosting Europe's energy supply security".

Ignacio Galán, Iberdrola's chairman, added: "We continue to make progress in green hydrogen, which is essential in sectors that are difficult to electrify. Thanks to the fact that this energy vector creates industry and jobs in our country, it has been identified as one of the recipients of the Next Generation EU funding, which is essential to accelerate its technological development and turn it into a mass energy solution."

Fertiberia and Iberdrola have already committed to greatly expand their existing green ammonia plans to 800 MW of electrolytic hydrogen production by 2027. The investment cost is estimated at 1.8 billion euro (US$1.92 billion). In December, Industrial Info reported that Iberdrola had teamed up with the company behind Sweden's largest planned fossil-free steel plant, H2 Green Steel, to build a giant 1-gigawatt (GW) plant to produce green hydrogen and steel. The proposed 2.3 billion-euro (US$2.6 billion) plant will be located in either Spain or Portugal, with production expected to start in 2025/26. For additional information, see December 13, 2021, article--Iberdrola and H2 Green Steel Reveal Giant Hydrogen Project.

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