The President of Cantabria, María José Sáenz de Buruaga, and the CEO of Enagás, Arturo Gonzalo, held a meeting today in Santander, at the headquarters of the regional government, to launch the Public Participation Concept Plan (PPCP) for the Spanish hydrogen backbone network in the region and underground storage, a process that will take place between 7 July and 14 August 2025.
Both the domestic hydrogen infrastructure in Spain and this associated storage are considered European Projects of Common Interest (PCI).
During the meeting, María José Sáenz de Buruaga stressed that this milestone represents the ‘starting signal’ for the development of hydrogen in Cantabria, which has great potential for growth in the region and is set to become a strategic source in the future.
Buruaga thanked Enagás for its collaboration and guaranteed her support to advance in the development of a ‘fundamental initiative’ for the sustainable reindustrialisation of the autonomous community, one of the priority objectives of her government, and in line with the model of the region that the president wants for Cantabria.
From left to right: Natalia Latorre, Energy Transition General Manager of Enagás; Arturo Gonzalo, CEO of Enagás; María José Sáenz de Buruaga, President of Cantabria; and Eduardo Arasti, Minister of Industry, Employment, Innovation and Trade.
For his part, Arturo Gonzalo pointed out that Enagás' Public Participation Concept Plan for the development of the Spanish hydrogen network ‘is a key participatory process to give citizens and institutions a voice in a national project that will strengthen economic and social development from the territories’, and stressed that ‘Cantabria will play a decisive role in the domestic hydrogen infrastructure in Spain, both for its location in the Cantabrian Coast Axis, and for its geological conditions that favour the future strategic storage of hydrogen’.
North 1
Cantabria will host the development of the North 1 underground storage of hydrogen in salt caverns, which Enagás will develop jointly with Solvay in the town of Polanco, and will have 140 kilometres of hydrogen pipelines within the Cantabrian Coast Axis, which runs through 26 towns along two sections: the Llanera-Reocín, around 38 km; and the Reocín-Arrigorriaga, approximately 102 km.
This network will enable future green hydrogen projects to be connected, especially in the area around Torrelavega, which will be a strategic hub of production and consumption of this vector.
Cantabria is receiving what is the largest public participation plan of its kind developed in Spain, which will cover 13 autonomous communities and more than 500 municipalities in 2025 and 2026. Enagás launched the plan on 25 April at the National Hydrogen Centre in Puertollano, in Castilla-La Mancha, the first community in which Enagás held participatory workshops and meetings with citizens. Subsequently, the Participation Plan continued in Extremadura and Andalusia.
With this initiative, Enagás and the Government of Cantabria reaffirm their commitment to a fair, transparent, and participatory energy transition, aligned with Spain’s and the European Union’s decarbonisation and sustainable development objectives.
Public participation
The PPCP of the Spanish hydrogen backbone network will gather contributions from more than 50 public administrations and 380 organisations and associations, as well as from all citizens interested in participating. The Plan’s deployment in Spain is expected to take 18 months, and, once it has been completed, a final report on the results of the process will be drawn up.
The aim of the PPCP is to share information on the future hydrogen network with all the stakeholders, resolve queries, explain the need for the project, foster the active participation of the communities in the process, mitigate any impacts on the ground, and guarantee the most appropriate social and environmental actions from an early stage.
All available information about the PPCP can be found at https://www.infraestructurasdehidrogeno.es
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