[Article originally published in Energías Renovables magazine]
In recent years, green hydrogen has emerged as one of the most promising solutions to reduce carbon emissions in specific sectors, thanks to public policies and subsidies aimed at accelerating its industrial-scale development.
However, the realities of rapid technology expansion are revealing the difficulties inherent in scaling up a technology still in its early stages, with evident immaturity in large-scale production and transportation, which is not yet economically viable without significant financial support.
The European Court of Auditors recently stated that the European Commission’s production and import targets for green hydrogen by 2030—around 20 million tons—are unrealistic. According to the Court’s report, these targets were not based on robust analysis but rather on political ambition. Despite this, the green hydrogen bubble in Spain shows no signs of deflating.
At the end of July, the Council of Ministers approved an agreement enabling Enagás to temporarily carry out green hydrogen infrastructure development projects. Recognized as European Projects of Common Interest by the European Commission last April, these projects include H2Med, a series of infrastructure for transporting green hydrogen from the Iberian Peninsula to central Europe, and the first branches of Spain’s Hydrogen Backbone.
These projects, about which little public information is available, are justified by a call for interest launched by the same company in September 2023, projecting national green hydrogen production scenarios far exceeding those in the draft update of Spain’s National Integrated Energy and Climate Plan, with production figures up to seven times higher.
There are numerous questions regarding the actual utility and necessity of these projects. However, everything points to moving forward, with little room to question their suitability.
It doesn’t matter that these projects were presented without prior analysis of future production and demand projections for green hydrogen or that current and mid-term demand analysis by sector is still needed. It doesn’t matter that there’s a need to prioritize local production and consumption of green hydrogen, respecting the territories’ needs and capacities. Nor does it matter that planning is required to clearly define where to produce green hydrogen and which uses are viable and should be prioritized.
It doesn’t matter that the necessity of developing a dedicated medium- and long-distance hydrogen transport network has not been demonstrated, risking these projects becoming stranded assets. The technical, economic, and energy efficiency challenges of transporting green hydrogen over long distances don’t matter. Potential environmental, social, and territorial impacts associated with these projects, directly and indirectly, also don’t matter.
No, none of this matters. Because green hydrogen is the trend of the moment—good, beautiful, and cheap. It’s the energy holy grail, and we must keep building from the top down, doing a lot without actually achieving anything that allows us to advance effectively and sustainably towards decarbonization in the current context of severe energy and climate crisis.
