A 500MW green hydrogen facility — one of Europe’s largest single-site renewable H2 projects — is to be built at the Portuguese port of Sines by 2025, its developers have announced.
Danish fund manager and offshore wind developer Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP) has joined forces with Portuguese developer Madoqua Renewables and Dutch consultancy Power2X to build the €1bn ($1.08bn) project, which will use 500MW of electrolysers to produce 50,000 tonnes of green hydrogen and 500,000 tonnes of green ammonia annually.
It is the second large-scale green hydrogen project announced in Iberia by CIP this year, following the unveiling of the 2GW Project Catalina in Spain in February.
An even larger renewable H2 project — the 7.4GW HyDeal España — was also announced in February, a month after the Repsol-led 2GW SHYNE plan in northern Spain was revealed. In total, 11.9GW of green hydrogen projects have been unveiled in Iberia in the past three months alone.
Portugal and Spain are expected to be able to produce green hydrogen more cheaply than other parts of Europe due to their high solar irradiation and relatively strong winds.
The renewable energy required for the MadoquaPower2X project will be sourced in Portugal, “in particular from renewable energy communities for wind and solar plants that are being developed in parallel”, CIP said in a statement.
“The hydrogen produced under this project can be used by the local industry as well as processed to create green ammonia for export from the terminal at the port of Sines,” it added.
The partners expect the project to be fully permitted and ready for a final investment decision by the end of next year, “with construction to commence thereafter and first hydrogen production by the middle of the decade”.
They are also looking into expanding the project to one million tonnes of green ammonia, which would presumably require 1GW of electrolysers.
“MadoquaPower2X will pave the way for decarbonization of critical industrial processes and reduced dependency on natural gas imports,” said Occo Roelofsen, CEO of Power2X, which also develops energy transition projects in Europe, Africa and the Middle East.
Portugal’s environment and energy secretary, João Galamba, added: “This important investment represents the actual implementation of Portugal’s National Strategy for Hydrogen, in line with the European Industrial Strategy, as well as the more recent measures proposed by the European Commission on REpower EU”.
