The keys to green hydrogen, Spain's commitment to be the 'battery' of Europe on which renewables depend

In a 2022 marked by the energy crisis and the fear of having gas supply problems, green hydrogen cemented its position as a great sovereign renewable alternative to hydrocarbons.

Not depending on Russia -nor on Algeria, Nigeria or the United States- and decarbonization go through a proven technology, consensus, but that is still far from being installed on a large scale.

The Mediterranean countries set 2030 as the date for the great hydrogen corridor, while the National Integrated Energy and Climate Plan (PNIEC) marks previous milestones for abandoning polluting sources and adopting those that are not.

But it all depends on the lightest element on the periodic table.

Spain has made an important commitment to it, although the times of the bid may not correspond to the deadlines set to replace other more polluting sources with renewable and intermittent alternatives.

In other words, the country is heading towards a future in which it could be practically self-sufficient solely thanks to solar, wind and hydraulic energy while it abandons nuclear -which will gradually close between 2027 and 2035-, coal -already practically irrelevant- and the gas.

But you need to have a way to store enough electricity to power the entire territory

.

That's where the hydrogen would come in.

The key is that hydrogen allows energy to be stored in a potential way.

It is not something new -natural gas or dams, in their own way, do the same-, but it is linked to the future due to its green possibilities and because it

.

There is a certain consensus that it is, at least for now, the best 'battery' available to conserve electricity for long periods of time and a way to help decarbonise sectors that cannot be electrified.

"There is a lot of talk about electrification thanks to the development of electric renewables, which have had a very important deployment in recent years and will continue to do so, but electrification does not cover all the energy uses that exist globally," he explains.

, head of hydrogen development at Naturgy.

In the end, the country uses an energy mix and there are places where resorting to electricity is not enough: heat-intensive processes such as those in industry and various forms of transport -maritime, heavy or aviation, mainly- cannot be electrified.

"It is not economically or thermally viable," summarizes Goicoechea.

Thus, it is necessary to look for alternatives that allow decarbonization.

"That is where hydrogen or its derivatives appear, the best known of which are ammonia and methanol," says the expert.

"If we want to reach the goal of net emissions in 2050, this

," she highlights.

The company, in fact, does not focus solely on hydrogen, but also works with other alternatives, such as biomethane, which is obtained through waste treatment.

Arturo Gonzalo

, CEO of Enagás, agrees.

"With the European objectives of reducing emissions until reaching neutrality in 2050, electrification is going to be very relevant, but in what by its very nature cannot be electrified,

," he illustrates. .

hydrogen rainbow

Hydrogen, in any case, is already widely used in sectors such as refining, as well as mobility.

However, practically all of it is gray hydrogen, one of the polluting 'hues'.

Of the six colors with which the element is classified -they do not have to do with the gas, but with its production-,

.

To extract hydrogen - one of the most common elements in, at least, the Milky Way - two main techniques are used.

The first is with fossil fuels, such as gas or methane, and a team that dissociates the molecule and extracts hydrogen on one side and carbon on the other.

The second is, on paper, simple: you just need to apply electricity to the water using an electrolyser.

Although the raw material is the same, the color that adjectives it changes.

Green hydrogen is obtained with the second method, electrolysis, and using only electricity from renewable sources.

Pink, for its part, uses electricity that comes from nuclear power plants, while yellow is produced based on the energy mix, so the shade of its green will depend on it.

In any case, Europe, which in its new taxonomy has given a 'renewable' push to atomic energy, might as well define pink hydrogen as green for practical purposes.

According to calculations by the International Energy Association (IEA), in 2019 -that is, before the price escalation of the last year-

, while with gas it ranged between 0.7 and 2.1 and coal was between 1.9 and 2.6 dollars.

They estimate that in 2060 the costs will have equalized below -it will depend on the price of electricity- and will also be much closer above (2.5 dollars with emissions, 3.3 dollars per kilo of green).

This means that the current reality of gas is gray: almost 99% of hydrogen is produced from methane.

Blue is similar, only it adds CO2 capture and storage to be less harmful.

At the other end of the spectrum would be brown or black, which is produced with coal.

But Spain's, due to its renewable park, would be green and this, together with its infrastructure and location, means that the country can aspire to become the gas node in Europe.

"Spain

: it has a key geographical and climatic position, with great renewable generation capacity, industrial capacity and a robust infrastructure network," Gonzalo points out.

It also recalls the H2MED project, which gives the peninsula a leading role, especially if it finally becomes a Project of Common Interest. "Starting in 2030, Spain could contribute to Europe 21 bcm equivalent to two million tons of hydrogen per year, which represents 20% of the expected hydrogen production in Europe", quantifies the manager.

The key, explains Goicoechea, is that "the largest component in the final price of hydrogen is related to the price of electricity."

In other words, it depends on renewable generation, so "to the extent that a country is a site with great potential for the development of renewables, it will have great potential to develop competitive hydrogen."

And Spain fits this description.

"In that part, it has a competitive advantage over other countries," she argues.

"It has the necessary characteristics to become a world hydrogen power; Spain can become a producer, but also an exporter."

gas for coal

The problem is to make everything coincide, especially if the horizon of 2027 is taken into account, when the process of closing the nuclear plants will begin because the alternative, for the moment, is to resort even more to natural gas.

It was already seen this summer, when the electricity demand in France and Portugal increased and the heat wave paralyzed the production of turbines and panels: the combined cycle worked more than ever.

And the last time a source of the mix came out, this phenomenon was reproduced.

Although the plan to close the coal-fired power plants was already several years old, the dismantling was noticeable between 2017 and 2019: it went from contributing 17.2% of the country's total electricity to 4.9%.

Meanwhile,

, a percentage that has only been exceeded this year.

In the last five years, wind power and photovoltaic solar are the two sources that have seen their installed power grow the most and there are days when between them they account for more than 50% of generation.

However, the Government is not concerned about this, because renewable deployment is rapid and because nuclear will gradually leave the system, not suddenly.

Sources from the Ministry of Ecological Transition point out that the organization does not believe that the same situation will occur as a few years ago when almost all the thermal plants were closed.

Meanwhile, gas and hydrogen will coexist, since although the second is called to replace the first, they are compatible.

In fact, much of the infrastructure can be reused.

"According to the European Hydrogen Backbone (EHB) initiative, around 70% of the current natural gas transport infrastructure can be reused to transport hydrogen," recalls Gonzalo.

And in the case of Spain, it must also be taken into account that "there are 900 kilometers of duplicate gas pipelines, with parallel tubes that follow the same route and that were built to relieve congestion in the network."

In other words, in a first transition stage one of the tubes will be able to transport natural gas and the parallel renewable hydrogen.

However, electrolysis technology still has room for improvement to achieve better prices.

At the moment, the large investment that must be made means that you must be producing hydrogen almost full time to achieve amortization.

But in the future, when it gets close to the producer prices predicted by the IEA, it won't necessarily be the case.

"As of today,

," Goicoechea illustrates.

And, in fact, to be so, it still has to resolve a regulatory identity crisis: what exactly is renewable hydrogen.

If pink enters, France, a European nuclear stronghold, would have a huge advantage.

But if it is green, the 'stack' of the future could be produced in Spain.

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