Portugal's Galp sets path for more renewables in 2021-2025 plan

Portugal’s Galp Energia SGPS SA (ELI:GALP) will aim to boost its operational renewables capacity to over 4 GW by 2025 and 12 GW by 2030 and use its industrial might to spread into new forms of energy.

The oil and gas company plans to allocate around 30% of its net capex to renewables, but also limit upstream spending to already approved developments, Galp said in its new strategic plan on Wednesday.

The total net expenditure will be cut by 20% in 2021-2025, compared to the previous plan, Galp said.

"We are going to scale-up our renewables business, expand our position in the electricity value chain and develop new energies to accelerate our decarbonisation path, with the ambition to become net carbon neutral by 2050," said CEO Andy Brown.

Galp highlighted its activities in the solar PV segment in the Iberian peninsula, saying its wants to maximise the returns from the existing portfolio. The company stated its intention to expand into other geographies and technologies.

In 2021-2025, the Portuguese group will put some 5% of its capex into new energies.

"We are in a privileged position to develop green hydrogen solutions, taking advantage of our industrial skills", Galp said.

The group's plan is to develop a 100-MW electrolyser project by 2025, and potentially expand it to 600 MW-1.0 GW as the business case is proven, it said.

Galp is also exploring opportunities to enter into the battery value chain, saying it is "positioning itself to expand into lithium chemical processing in Portugal, as it is securing feedstock and developing key partnerships".

Galp set the target to become a net zero company by 2050, but before that, it will seek to cut absolute emissions from its operations by 40% by 2030 compared to 2017 levels.

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