Enagás seeks the complicity of Catalonia for its hydrogen network

MadridEnagás begins a tour to seek Catalonia's complicity with green hydrogen. Specifically, with the infrastructure that will allow its transport. Starting this Tuesday, the Spanish manager of gas infrastructure launches the public participation plan for the hydrogen network in the Principality, through which it plans to gather input from affected territories: from citizen opinion to city councils. To this end, it will hold a total of 16 in-person participatory workshops in different affected municipalities from this April 13th to next May 30th. "The project information will be presented, contributions will be collected, and doubts will be resolved," indicate Enagás sources. The intention is to minimize possible social and political resistances to the project, especially after the experience with infrastructures, now completely stalled, such as the MidCat pipeline that was to connect Catalonia with France.

In fact, the company chaired by Antoni Llardén and in which the Spanish government, through SEPI, holds 5% of the share capital, has done the same in the rest of the places in the State where the future hydrogen backbone network is planned to pass and which, in general terms, will run parallel to the current natural gas network. In the Catalan case, 89 municipalities are affected by the course of the more than 270 kilometers of the designed future network (30 municipalities in Barcelona and 59 in the province of Tarragona).

The Catalan route is integrated by two of the main axes of the Spanish backbone network that will connect Spain with Portugal, but also with France through the BarMar or H2Med (the maritime hydroduct between Barcelona and Marseille). These two axes are: the Ebro Valley axis and the Levante axis. In the first case, there will be a 42-kilometer section that will connect Saragossa with the municipality of Tivissa, in Ribera d'Ebre. And a second section of 165 kilometers will have to connect Tivissa with Barcelona, specifically with the regasification plant that Enagás has in the port of Barcelona and from where the H2Med is expected to depart.

Furthermore, one of the three compression stations will be located in Tivissa – an infrastructure that, once it receives hydrogen, can compress and store it to supply vehicles–. Regarding the section of the Levante axis, it will connect Tivissa with La Salzadella (Baix Maestrat) and will be 68 kilometers long. In total, the hydrogen network designed for Catalonia foresees the aggregation of nodes in the Reus and El Papiol areas, where Enagás plans for future production and consumption projects to be established.

Uncertainties

The manager of the gas infrastructure in the State has a budget of 2,640 million euros to deploy this network throughout the State. The intention is for construction to begin in 2027 and for it to be operational by 2030.

In any case, Enagás's plans are also accompanied by uncertainties. On the one hand, although the intention is to be able to reuse part of the current gas network infrastructure, this is not possible for all kilometers. In fact, converting it is one of the difficulties, especially because gas and hydrogen are two technologies that must be treated differently due to their composition. Enagás has assured that it has identified up to 30% of pipeline sections that would be reusable for hydrogen and that the goal is to increase this percentage to 70%. Furthermore, 80% of the current pipeline network coincides with the routes that the company has planned throughout the Spanish territory to connect the different hydrogen production centers.

The other uncertainty is the issue of the production and consumption of green hydrogen, an energy vector that aspires to play a key role in decarbonization and energy autonomy. Or at least this is the ambition of countries like Spain, which is not only looking for ways to produce this renewable energy (it is generated from other energies such as solar or wind), but also for ways to transport it internally and externally – hence the hydrogen backbone network was born –. Some voices have pointed out that for now it is a technology that "is not competitive", said the president of Naturgy, Francisco Reynés, during the presentation of the annual results. Repsol has also cooled its deployment. On the contrary, Arturo Gonzalo, CEO of Enagás, has defended that it is advancing "at cruising speed". "There are many opinions that have the vocation of becoming self-fulfilling prophecies", stated Gonzalo last February.