EDP and Galp together in a 1.5 billion consortium to produce hydrogen in Sines

The electric company EDP and the oil company Galp have joined forces to present the H2Sines mega project to the government, in a consortium with REN and other national and international companies, to create a green hydrogen production plant in Sines. The investment will be around 1.5 billion euros until 2030, according to ECO. This is one of the largest projects selected by the government to be part of a future Portuguese candidacy for IPCEI status – an Important Project of Common European Interest – to obtain significant community funds.

The Bondalti Chemicals for Estarreja – “H2Enable – The Hydrogen Way for Our Chemical Future” – it has the highest total investment value – 2.4 billion euros, in 20 years – but only a first slice of around 800 million will be advanced by 2030, revealed the Secretary of State for Energy, João Galamba, in declarations to ECO.

“We want large, medium and small projects all over the country. Sines will always be a very important hub for hydrogen, but we will not say no to a big industrial project like Bondalti, which can be considered a new Autoeuropa because of its industrial dimension and positive impact on the Portuguese economy. The project has as one of its valences the full replacement of fossil ammonia by green ammonia, with the export potential of this new product,” said the Secretary of State.

About Sines, Galamba confirmed that there are several projects in the pipeline. “The major project for Sines [the consortium led by EDP and Galp] represents less than 1.6 billion, 10% of the total volume of expressions of interest. But it is not the only one for the region. As we have always said, for Sines it would be at least 1 GW of power installed in hydrogen, but if there were more mature projects that made sense we could go further. I can say that there were projects that made sense and with reasonable dimension,” he said.

João Galamba also highlights a new project to be born in Sines, from “a Portuguese company that is creating an equipment factory [electrolisers] for the hydrogen production”. This profile fits Fusion Fuel, with its solar radiation concentration technology (DC-PEHG) for the hydrogen production by electrolysis of water, produced in the company’s industrial unit in Sabugo, Almargem do Bispo, and which will have its debut in the first quarter 2021 in the Green Gas project in Évora.

In Sines, the company has already announced that it wants to invest 488 million euros in five projects by 2025 (one per year). João Wahnon, founder and executive director of Fusion Fuel reveals that in 2021 the company will invest 18 million on transferring its plant to the south of the country, with an increase in production capacity, and another 25 million on the Sines 1 hydrogen project, with the capacity to produce 2,500 tons of that gas by the end of next year. All this with their own capital, thanks to the injection of capital by American HL Acquisitions. Then follow phases 2 to 5 of the Fusion Fuel project, between 2022 and 2025 (with successive annual investments of 61 million, 95 million, 142 million and 166 million). When all is completed, by the middle of the decade, the company wants to be producing 61 thousand tons of hydrogen.