Iberdrola unveils plans for 'Europe's largest' solar-storage-hydrogen project

• Iberdrola is to create a landmark solar-storage-hydrogen facility in main Spain, proclaiming it to be largest commercial environment-friendly hydrogen center in Europe once total.

The utility has partnered with fertilizer producer Fertiberia to develop the plant which will pair 100MW of solar PV, a 20MWh lithium-ion battery system and a 20MW electrolyser, itself aimed at being one of the largest electrolytic hydrogen production systems on the planet.

Both parties have penciled an arrangement to establish the project, causing an investment of EUR150 million (US$ 175 million).

The project results from come onstream in 2021 and also will have a manufacturing capability of more than 200,000 tonnes of environment-friendly hydrogen each year.

Hydrogen generated at the center will certainly be utilized at Fertiberia's ammonia plant in Puertollano. Therefore, the firm will certainly have the ability to reduce its natural gas demand by more than 10%.

It notes Iberdrola's first major step right into the nascent environment-friendly hydrogen field and also Ignacio Galán, chairman at Iberdrola, said the campaign "shows the course as well as opportunities used by the energy change to create ingenious projects as the emphasis for industrialisation and employment in our nation."

Environment-friendly hydrogen has actually emerged throughout 2020 as a particularly popular fad driven by the requirement of deeper decarbonisation by established economic situations. By pairing utility-scale electrolysers with renewables, hydrogen for usage in heavy sector, transportation and heating can be produced without the exhausts currently associated with supposed 'blue' or 'grey' hydrogen.

Previously this month the European Union revealed its eco-friendly hydrogen approach, which specified that for the continent's hydrogen field to scale-up and attain the economic climates of scale necessary for the industry to be cost-competitive, approximately 40GW of electrolysers would certainly be needed by 2030, calling for up to 120GW of brand-new renewables capacity.