The long trajectory in the research and development of hydrogen technologies and the commitment of the Aragonese Executive to maintain and promote the lines of work have been protagonists this morning of the European Week of Regions in Brussels. The Director General of Industrial Promotion and Innovation of the Government of Aragon, Mar Paños, has intervened in this conference, showing her support to the hydrogen valleys that allow “creating regional ecosystems in which the whole hydrogen value chain is present by grouping initiatives of production, storage and final use of this energy vector”.

In his presentation, Paños highlighted the trajectory of the Aragon Hydrogen Foundation, which brings together more than 90 companies, organizations and research centers in its board of trustees. He highlighted the Foundation full development of the fourth master plan, which ends in 2025 and contains a strategic line on these regional valleys. In addition, the Aragon Hydrogen Foundation is the only entity working in six different valleys funded by the European Union and the Spanish entity that has been awarded more projects of the main European funding program for hydrogen, the Hydrogen Technology Platform (Clean Hydrogen Partnership Joint Undertaking CH2JU).

The long-awaited start of the North Adriatic Hydrogen Valley (NAHV) is here at last. The first transnational initiative of this kind under the Horizon Europe programme, supported by the Clean Hydrogen Partnership, is being launched in Portorož-Portorose, Slovenia. More than 100 delegates representing 37 project partners from three countries, Croatia, the Friuli Venezia Giulia Autonomous Region in Italy, and Slovenia, will gather there for a project kick-off meeting.

 Beginning on 1^st September 2023, the NAHV will run for 72 months. It includes 17 pilots to be developed in different locations in all three partner countries. The partnership, which has been awarded a grand of €25 million by Clean Hydrogen Partnership, and isled by HSE, Slovenia’s largest electricity producer and trader and the largest producer of electricity from renewable sources, includes 37 organisations: companies, universities, institutes and other public entities from the three participating countries. The project design covers the entire value chain of renewable hydrogen use, from production, through storage and distribution, to its end use in various sectors, notably industry and land and maritime transport, creating leverage to accelerate the transition to renewables on three target pillars: hard-to-abate industries, and the energy and transport sectors. These are the main reasons why the NAHV has received the Seal of Excellence, which is awarded under Horizon Europe to projects that have been highly rated.

The key aim of the initiative is to create a market for green hydrogen on both the demand and supply sides, making it a competitive energy source for the future. Key industry players from all three countries will develop pilot projects to produce up to 5,000 tonnes of renewable hydrogen per year from renewable energy sources, destined for energy storage, distribution and use. It is expected that some 20% of the produced renewable hydrogen will be exchanged between the participating countries, thus creating a primary regional market for hydrogen. By introducing advanced hydrogen technologies and developing skills and infrastructure, the partnership also pursues other key objectives of the European Green Deal. In particular, the NAHV testbed projects address the decarbonisation of important industrial sectors such as steel, cement and glass production, and provides sustainable land and maritime transport solutions linked to reducing the carbon footprint.

It is expected that the implementation of the planned mature stage innovation activities will unleash further investments in renewable hydrogen-related technologies in an amount of more than €300 million, destined to increase the capacity of hydrogen production, storage, transmission and use. Additional investments are expected to be funded on top, both during the course of the project implementation and afterwards, from private and public sources in the form of follow-up investments in the successfully implemented pilots in 17 testbed locations across the three participating countries, as well as through new initiatives which will contribute to the evolution of a social and economic ecosystem based on renewable hydrogen. The foreseen development creates the need for new competencies and skills, which makes the universities and research institutions which are partners in the initiative important protagonists in designing and disseminating new educational programmes, as the NAHV is destined to become a vehicle for job creation.

Institutional representatives of the three constituent territories: Croatia, Friuli-Venezia Giulia and Slovenia, respectively: State Secretary Ivo Milatić, Regional Councillor Pierpaolo Roberti on behalf of the President Massimiliano Fedriga, and State Secretary Tina Sersen, welcomed the participants of the NAHV Kick-off meeting in Portorož together with the CEO of HSE, the lead partner, dr. Tomaž Štokelj. Later in the day, they addressed the public at the press conference together with Antonio Aguilo Rullan of Clean Hydrogen Partnership Joint Undertaking.

Picture and text by https://www.hse.si/en/

he Kings of Spain and the Netherlands present the green hydrogen corridor between Algeciras and Rotterdam.

His Majesty King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands will visit the autonomous communities of Madrid, Castilla-La Mancha and Andalusia on Tuesday 13 and Wednesday 14 June in the morning. His Majesty King Felipe VI of Spain will be present at some of the events on the programme. Mr Willem-Alexander will be accompanied by Rob Jetten, Minister for Climate and Energy.

On the 13th, during HM King Willem-Alexander’s stay at the Royal Botanical Garden in Madrid, the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands will organise two meetings on the future of green hydrogen.

At 4 p.m. a symposium is scheduled under the title:

“The contribution of hydrogen valleys to the decarbonisation of Europe. Opportunities for Dutch-Spanish cooperation in the development of hydrogen valleys and sustainable aviation fuels”.

The media can attend the symposium from a press section. Speeches will be as follows:

– Speeches by Teresa Ribera, Minister for Ecological Transition, and Rob Jetten, Dutch Minister for Climate and Energy.

– Introduction by Javier Brey, Spanish Hydrogen Association.

– Debate led by Bart Biebuyck, former Executive Director Clean Hydrogen Partnership.

– Closing remarks by the Spanish Secretary of State for Trade, Xiana Méndez.

At 17:15 there will be a networking event at the Glorieta de los Castaños del Jardín, where D. Guillermo-Alejandro will be present, with several Dutch and Spanish companies on hydrogen valleys and the innovative hydrogen ecosystem.

The Commission and key stakeholders signed a joint declaration highlighting the crucial role of sustained efforts in renewable hydrogen research and innovation.

Through this declaration, the Commission together with the European hydrogen industry, scientific community, and European regions, commit to stepping up and accelerating joint actions in research, development, demonstration, and deployment of Hydrogen Valleys. In line with the EU Hydrogen Strategy and contributing to the REPowerEU Plan and the Green Deal Industrial Plan objectives, these powerhouses connect hydrogen production, transportation, and a range of cutting-edge applications – from clean mobility to industrial feedstock – creating fully functional and sustainable clusters of supply and demand, advancing renewable hydrogen deployment and as a result driving forward the clean energy transition.

The joint declaration also calls for sustained investments, strengthening synergies between funding resources, sharing knowledge, stimulating the development of education and training for skills, and building regional hydrogen networks and interconnections between Hydrogen Valleys.

Based on this, we highlight the work of our partner, the Aragon Hydrogen Foundation, the only European entity that participates in 5 hydrogen valleys. This model is ideal for extending and showing that this technology brings together all the elements related to the production, storage, transport and end use of hydrogen in a single territory. Specifically, the Aragonese Foundation is participating in the hydrogen valley projects of BIG HIT (Scotland), Heavenn (Holland), Green Hysland (Balearic Islands), NAVH (Italy-Slovenia-Croatia) and SH2AMROCK (Ireland).

Pic by https://energy.ec.europa.eu/

The Agri-Food City of Tudela, in Navarra, has been the scene of the first forum of the Ebro Hydrogen Corridor. An event in which 43 projects belonging to Aragon, Basque Country, Navarra and Catalonia and representing the entire value chain have been presented. The event has also had institutional representation with the presence of the President of Navarra, Maria Chivite; the Minister of Economic and Business Development of the Government of Navarra, Mikel Irujo; the director of the Basque Energy Agency, Iñigo Ansola; the Director General of Industry and SMEs of the Government of Aragon, Javier Navarro; and the Minister of Enterprise and Labor of the Generalitat de Catalunya, Roger Torrent. The president of Navarra, María Chivite, has highlighted «the importance of the collaboration between the communities of the Basque Country, Aragon, Catalonia and Navarra to work with ambition in the energy transition and for the Ebro Corridor to become the Green Hydrogen pole in Southern Europe with the sum of the industrial capacities of the four autonomous communities and the ability to promote a Hydrogen economy».
During the forum also took place the presentation of 43 projects representing the entire value chain of green hydrogen and belonging to the four autonomous communities. In addition, the companies have had the opportunity to hold bilateral meetings to form synergies between them and to develop projects that promote the development of the hydrogen economy.