Brussels includes H2Med as a priority project and opens the door to its financing

This Tuesday, the European Commission included the hydrogen corridor project that will circulate between the Iberian Peninsula and France, H2Med, to the list of Projects of Common Interest (PCI). It is the first time that the Community Executive includes infrastructures of this type, considered “indispensable” for Brussels in the decarbonization of the economy.

This new list, which is updated every two years, includes a total of 65 hydrogen projects, among which, in addition to the one on the Iberian Peninsula with France, also other infrastructures in the Nordic and Baltic countries.

At the end of last year, Spain, Portugal and France announced the long-awaited hydrogen project, definitively burying the MidCat gas project and the animosity of the project on the part of France. By then countries were rushing to submit their candidacy to the PCI list in order to obtain European funding. Although it is not automatic, being included on the list does make you more eligible to obtain community funds.

The aspiration of H2Med (the expanded version of the entire infrastructure if the interconnections between Spain and Portugal are taken into account) is to become the first renewable hydrogen hub in the world. It will connect the green hydrogen production centers with domestic demand and the two international interconnections with France and Portugal. The project includes two cross-border infrastructures, one between Celorico da Beira (Portugal) and Zamora, and another, underwater, between Barcelona and Marseille (the original BarMar), which are promoted by Enagás on the Spanish side, REN on the Portuguese side, and GRTgaz. and Terega for the French one. The European Commission has not estimated the total amount of money it will be able to finance, although Spain, Portugal and France estimated BarMar at 2.5 billion euros, with the hope that half of it could be financed by the EU.

It will be estimated that 10% of the green hydrogen that the Twenty-seven will need in 2030 will transit through this corridor, of the twenty million expected to be consumed by all countries, especially since the objective of 42.5% renewable consumption between now and 2018 was increased. end of the decade.

Also included in the Executive’s list is the connection between France and Germany, extremely dependent on Russian gas until the war in Ukraine and which has had an enormous impact on its economy, directly coming from the Peninsula. “The list of these cross-border projects draws the new energy map of Europe. The era of European financing of infrastructure with fossil fuels is over,” said the European Commissioner for Energy, Kadri Simson, in a press conference.

Likewise, the first axes that must make up the hydrogen network that will connect the main production centers are included in the list. One will run through the Cantabrian Sea, the northeast and the Mediterranean coast, and the other through the west and south of the country.

In total, the Executive has included 166 projects on the list, among which the interconnection between Spain and Portugal is maintained and that of the Bay of Biscay, a connection of 5,000 MW and 300 kilometers of submarine cable that will connect the Basque Country with France.