The Diplomat
The hydrogen backbone network in Spain aspires to become a supplier or ‘hub’ of this material to the major industrial regions of Europe, including Germany, to which up to 2.5 million tonnes could be exported.
The CEO of Enagás, Arturo Gonzalo, announced yesterday that the company will go to Berlin on 18 October to carry out a “major presentation event” of the Spanish infrastructure and H2Med to position itself on the map.
“It is a great opportunity for Spain, after meeting the domestic demand of our country, to also be a supplier of these needs of the major industrial regions of Europe,” Gonzalo remarked at the conclusion of a ‘Call for interest’ to explain the axes of the Spanish hydrogen backbone and capture the interest of companies in this regard.
The executive pointed out that the presentation event in Germany has the support of the Ministry of Ecological Transition, the Secretary of State for Energy and also the German government and the European Commission.
Green hydrogen and gas
Meanwhile, during a debate on Europe at the FAES Campus 2023, the CEO of Iberdrola Spain, Mario Ruiz-Tagle, said that if Europe wants to be the “world capital” of green hydrogen, it has to “run” because, as he warned, other regions of the world, such as Latin America, China, Australia or southern Africa are “waking up” and, from his point of view, in this sector it is about “being the first”.
He urged the European Union (EU) to encourage investment through a stable regulatory framework. “Europe at the moment is having a dangerous discussion about entrepreneurship. We’re talking about regulation, taxes, subsidies that suddenly don’t flow at the speeds we need them to. Those things, elsewhere, are not happening,” he warned.
Nevertheless, Ruiz-Tagle expressed his “confidence” that the EU will manage to achieve its energy transition objectives for 2030 and 2050.
In relation to gas, the CEO of Iberdrola Spain also pointed out that the EU was maintaining a “good speed” in terms of energy transition until the war broke out in Ukraine and there was an “explosion” in gas prices, although they had already begun to rise beforehand.
In the same debate, Repsol CEO Josu Jon Imaz said that it is “an aberration” that Spain has a Climate Law that prohibits gas exploration and production.
Imaz indicated that Spain “needs gas” and that it is an exercise in “hypocrisy” that it is being imported from other countries to give an image of “sustainability”, when the emission of carbon dioxide (Co2) and methane is the same and greater if we take into account the emissions from transporting it to Spain.
For his part, the CEO of Endesa, José Bogas, said that Spain is the European country that consumes the most Russian gas “by far” and stressed the importance of the price of this raw material for society.
