Renewable hydrogen, a country project

Creating and promoting a favourable environment for the supply and demand of renewable hydrogen is crucial.

Any new framework should prioritise, in the first phase of deployment, renewable hydrogen production projects linked to industrial end-use, as well as mobility projects over other options.

In this regard, the creation of hydrogen valleys or clusters will play a very significant role, where production, transformation and consumption are specially concentrated, taking advantage of the application of economies of scale, as well as the development of pilot projects linked, among others, to the transport sector and isolated energy systems.

The industry that uses hydrogen as a raw material (oil refining, fertilizers and chemicals, among others) has a great potential to boost renewable hydrogen production in the short term:

• Ambitious but common targets at EU level for industrial uses of renewable hydrogen can be a key lever to ensure a level playing field at EU level.
• Dedicated projects to decarbonise part of the hydrogen-intensive industry can speed-up technological maturity and enable the deployment of other end uses.

Other hydrogen end-uses should be encouraged in those areas where electrification is not the most efficient solution or is not technically feasible in the medium term, such as public transport, urban services or various uses in intermodal transport nodes such as ports, airports or logistics platforms.

The early support of this project profiles will allow to develop their competitiveness, in the same way that other nearby countries are developing.

Furthermore, given its high versatility as a vector, the potential of renewable hydrogen to store energy and/or decarbonise the heat sector in both industry and homes, must be assessed and prioritised in cases where electrification is not the most competitive solution.

In the long term, hydrogen can play an essential role in energy storage from a 100% renewable electricity system, a goal that it is expected to be achieved by 2050