Spanish multi-energy group Repsol SA (BME:REP) has committed a EUR-2.549-billion (USD 2.97bn) investment in the renewable hydrogen value chain by 2030 in an effort to position itself as a market leader in the Iberian Peninsula and become the third largest hydrogen producer in Europe.
Tomas Malango, a veteran executive at Repsol and newly-minted Hydrogen Director, recently presented Repsol’s renewable hydrogen strategy, in which the company stated its goal to reach a hydrogen capacity of 552 MW equivalent in 2025 and 1.9 GW in 2030.
The group will seek to meet its targets using different technologies, including electrolysis, biogas production and photoelectrocatalysis, and is already working on a number of hydrogen projects throughout Spain.
As Repsol is Spain’s largest producer and consumer of hydrogen, the company has situated most of its hydrogen projects near its refineries.
Repsol’s first electrolysis plant, with a capacity of 2.5 MW, will produce green hydrogen for the group’s majority-owned Petronor refinery in Bilbao and serve facilities stationed at the nearby technology park. This plant will start operation in the second half of 2022.
The company also announced projects to install 100 MW of electrolysers at Cartagena, Tarragona and Petronor refineries.
Repsol has also been developing a proprietary photoelectrocatalysis (PEC) technology for over a decade. In 2018, the company brought in Spanish grid operator Enagas SA (BME:ENG) to the project, and today the two are running a pilot PEC plant at Repsol’s research centre in the Madrid region. Their plan is to build a larger PEC demonstration plant at Repsol’s industrial complex in Puertollano.
Repsol also highlighted its efforts to obtain renewable hydrogen from biogas using organic waste, biomass and agricultural waste streams. The group said it has recently conducted first tests in this regard at the Cartagena refinery, where it has manufactured low-carbon footprint fuels using renewable hydrogen.
Repsol has also reached out to public entities, such as the Basque Energy Agency, and the private sector players, namely Saudi Arabian Oil Co (TADAWUL:2222), to use renewable hydrogen in the synthetic fuels production.
More recently, Repsol signed an agreement with Portuguese renewable energy company EDP Renovaveis SA (ELI:EDPR) to discuss opportunities for the development of renewable hydrogen projects in the Iberian Peninsula.
(EUR 1.0 = USD 1.164)
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Hydrogen tanks. Source: US Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy
