The CEO, Arturo Gonzalo, announced during the opening of the Enagás H2 Technical Day, held today at the Espacio Bertelsmann in Madrid, the creation of a Hydrogen Technology Observatory “to promote, delve further into and share technical advances in the field of renewable hydrogen”.
Arturo Gonzalo stressed the importance of the technology “in view of the imminent development of a hydrogen market in Europe”, and added that “the Hydrogen Technology Observatory will be a meeting point open to the main agents in the hydrogen value chain”, describing the ‘Enagás H2 Technical Day’ as “the cornerstone” of this forum.
This event, promoted by Enagás, follows yesterday’s meeting in Madrid of the participants in the H2GAR (Hydrogen Gas Assets Readiness) project for the technological development of hydrogen transport, made up of seven European Transmission System Operators: Fluxys, Gasunie, GRTGaz, National Grid, OGE, Snam and Enagás.
Proven technology
The CEO of Enagás pointed out that “the development of renewable hydrogen is perfectly viable technologically”, with scaling challenges in areas such as the material of the hydroproducts, instrumentation, compressors, storage in salt caverns, adaptation of existing networks, design of the dedicated network, maintenance, metering and digitalisation. “Hydrogen has been transported through pipelines since 1938”, so “the technology is proven and now the challenge is to scale it up”, he added.
The context is favourable for this scaling up, and in this sense, Arturo Gonzalo explained that “Europe is clear and is ramping up its ambition”, and said that, if by 2030 the European REPowerEU plan sets green hydrogen consumption at 20 million tonnes, with half of it produced in Europe, the European Commission is already suggesting that by 2040 EU production will reach 35 to 40 million tonnes.
On this path, Europe is advancing at an unprecedented pace with milestones such as the approval of the European Hydrogen and Decarbonised Gas Markets Directive and the inclusion, for the first time, of hydrogen projects in the European list of Projects of Common Interest (PCIs), published yesterday in the journal of the European Union (OJEU).
In addition, Spain is playing a leading role with an Integrated National Energy and Climate Plan (PNIEC) and the designation of Enagás as Provisional Operator of the Spanish Hydrogen Backbone. The estimated investment in Spain for this backbone and for the European H2Med interconnector is 5.9 billion euros.
Expert input
The Enagás H2 Technical Day was attended by experts from the institutional, industrial, operational and regulatory spheres. After the opening address by the CEO of Enagás, the Analyst of the International Energy Agency (IEA), Amalia Pizarro, will give a presentation entitled “State of the art and perspectives of hydrogen”, and Rosen’s senior engineer and expert on the subject, Daniel Sandana, will give the keynote address: “The future of industrial standards for the transport of hydrogen”.
Several round tables will be held during the morning: the first one, entitled “Regulatory challenges (regulation and legal technical standards) and their implication in the availability of mature technology”, will be moderated by the General Manager of Engineering, Technology and Digitalisation of Enagás, Susana de Pablo, with the participation of the Secretary General of GIE, Boyana Achovski, the Head of Policy and Market of Hydrogen Europe, Daniel Fraile, and the Chairman of Sedigas, Joan Batalla.
Snam’s Managing Director of LNG Italy, H2Gar representative and Chairman of the International Gas Union (IGU) Transport Committee, Maurizio Zangrandi, will moderate the panel “Challenges in sustainable infrastructure development and construction”, with the participation of Rosen’s Global Hydrogen Manager, Marion Erdelen-Peppler, Wood’s Head of Subsea Systems & Export, Robert Inglis, MAN’s Industrial & Midstream Sales Manager, Christian Brotel, NEA’s H2 & Circular Sales Manager, Andrea Fragonara, BH’s Hydrogen Solutions Architect, Francesco Bini, and Geostock’s Sales & Marketing Manager, Carlos Gómez.
The third round table, entitled “The challenges of operation management”, will be moderated by Enagás' General Manager of Infrastructures, Claudio Rodríguez, and will include interventions by PWC-BIM’s Global Energy Advisory Leader, Helena Lapeyra, DNV’s Senior Principal Specialist for Energy Transition, Metering and Flow, Henk Riezebos, The Next Pangea Scientific Team Member, Nerea Borja, and Snam’s Head of Decarbonisation Technologies and manager of the NHRyA Project, Pere Margalef.
Natalia Latorre, General Manager of Energy Transition at Enagás, will close the conference.
