Commercial production has started at Spain’s first industrial renewable hydrogen plant, a flagship facility developed by an industrial consortium led by Enagás and Acciona Energía on the Balearic island of Mallorca.
The Power to Green Hydrogen Mallorca Project, set up in 2020 in Loseta under the aegis of Spain’s Green Hysland initiative, will produce 330 tonnes of green hydrogen a year powered by the nearby 8.5MW Lloseta and 5.9MW Petra solar arrays.
“This pioneering project inaugurates a technological development that will be very relevant in the coming years, to replace gas of fossil origin with renewable gases, such as biogas, biomethane, and hydrogen obtained with renewable energies,” said regional minister for ecological transition Teresa Ribera, attending the plant’s inauguration along with dignitaries and politicians including the President of the Balearic government, Francina Armengol.
“Thanks to these advances we will reduce our dependence on hydrocarbon imports, we will offer a solution for the decarbonisation of sectors that are difficult to electrify, such as industry or heavy transport, and we will create new companies and new jobs in quality.”
Enagás chairman Antonio Llardén stated: “Projects such as Green Hysland and its set up in Mallorca demonstrate the importance of coordinating and cooperating to move the decarbonisation process forward. Thanks to consortium, the entire value chain is represented in the project, which ensures both the deployment of infrastructure for the production of green hydrogen and its end-uses.”
The Mallorca project is expected to become a reference case for other green hydrogen production facilities’ operation, but Acciona president Manuel Entrecanales placed the emphasis on the “industrial and economic opportunity” the market presented for Spain and the EU.
“The public-private collaboration in this project and the support of the different administrations represent a model of how to maximise the outcome of such opportunities,” he said. “The Mallorca project will allow to improve a technology and develop a business model based on renewable hydrogen that will make a qualitative breakthrough in decarbonisation.”
The Spanish island, in the Mediterranean, aims to cut its CO2 emissions by up to 21,000 tonnes a year once its green hydrogen industrial ecosystem is fully developed – which includes the first ‘hydroduct’ pipeline in Spain, planned to link to Mallorca’s gas distribution network.
Green hydrogen will be used to fuel bus fleets and provide heating and electric power generation for commercial and public buildings on Mallorca and the Iberostar hotel group is among commercial businesses aiming to shift away from gas consumption to renewable hydrogen as the plant ramps up production.
Spain published its hydrogen ‘roadmap’ in 2020, setting its ambition of having 4GW of production capacity by 2030, mobilised by a total investment of almost €9bn ($9.9bn).
