The second largest Spanish oil company, Cepsa, redoubles its commitment to renewable hydrogen as a fuel of the future. The energy firm has announced this Thursday in the Cadiz municipality of San Roque an investment of 3,000 million euros in the start-up of two new renewable hydrogen generation plants in Andalusia: in Campo de Gibraltar (Cádiz) and in Palos de la Border (Huelva). They will have a joint capacity of two gigawatts (one at each facility) and their production goal will be 300,000 tons of hydrogen per year, a fundamental gas in the decarbonization of sectors in which electrification is little less than a chimera.
The project is ten times larger than the largest of those initiated so far in the Old Continent in the field of renewable hydrogen. “This large-scale production will be a vital contribution to the energy transition and security of supply, producing sustainable energy in Europe and for Europe,” said Cepsa CEO Maarten Wetselaar. The plan involves taking advantage of its refineries and chemical plants currently in operation.
The priority destination of the production of both plants will be the transport sector, both air and freight by sea and land, an area in which hydrogen has all the ballots to prevail over the rest of the decarbonization alternatives. Just a month ago, the Danish shipping giant Maersk agreed with the Spanish government on an investment of 10,000 million euros to generate up to two million tons of methanol (a hydrogen derivative) in Spain for its ships by 2030.
The “most competitive hydrogen in Europe”
The Cepsa project adds, by itself, half of the green hydrogen production contemplated in the current renewable roadmap, which will be revised upwards next year. “This investment is going to make Spain a net exporter of energy”, stressed the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez. “Reducing our dependence on fossil fuels was essential to address the climate emergency, but Putin’s invasion of Ukraine moves us even further towards strategic autonomy: we are going to have a competitive advantage with energy that we did not have until now” , he added while emphasizing the importance of this factor in reducing inflation in November. “It is a revolution that we can and must lead. And Andalusia meets all the conditions to be one of the most competitive regions in the world in the production of hydrogen”.
The first hydrogen production plant to come into operation will be the one in Cádiz, which will be up and running in 2027. The second, the one in Huelva, will do so a year later, in 2028. To generate the renewable electricity needed in the electrolysis process, Cepsa undertakes to develop a total of three gigawatts of wind and photovoltaic power, with an investment of an additional 2,000 million. The oil company estimates 10,000 jobs linked to the project. Of that number, however, only 10% will be direct; the rest will be “indirect” or “induced”, especially in the construction phase.
The investment, as emphasized by the president of the Junta de Andalucía, Juan Manuel Moreno Bonilla, “is another step in energy independence, so as not to depend on the blackmail we have been suffering in recent years.” “This community is going to become, in a few years, the one with the highest generation of renewable energy in Spain and in Europe. And it has the strength to be at the forefront in the generation of green hydrogen”, he added.
“The most competitive green hydrogen on the continent will be produced here. They will be the two largest facilities for the manufacture of this energy vector projected in Europe”, Wetselaar emphasized at the event, to which this newspaper has attended as a guest. The Andalusian Hydrogen Valley —as the company has baptized it— is, according to its figures, ten times larger than the largest of those initiated so far in the Old Continent in the field of renewable hydrogen.
“This large-scale production will be a vital contribution to the energy transition and security of supply, producing sustainable energy in Europe and for Europe,” said Cepsa’s chief executive at the ceremony in which the details of the plan were revealed. , which takes advantage of its refineries and chemical plants.
Cepsa demands more tax incentives
The choice of Andalusia is not arbitrary. Not only because there are some of its largest facilities in the Iberian Peninsula, but also because the region —the second largest in Spain— has one of the best photovoltaic potentials in Europe. And it is also the largest consumer of hydrogen —today, of fossil origin— in the country, with 40% of the total.
“We cannot miss out on this great opportunity; It is a country project. We are in a very good starting position, but if we rest on our laurels, others will overtake us”, added Wetselaar, who took advantage of the act to appeal for caution with taxes on the energy sector and to increase tax incentives, to the image and likeness of the United States. A direct message to Sánchez, in full processing of the extraordinary tribute that is in the phase of parliamentary processing. At the beginning of November, the oil company already announced that, if there are no changes, it will take it to court.
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