The "pipeline" between France and Spain must solve their first great dilemma: what kind of hydrogen will they transport

Handshakes, smiles, family photos with the Mediterranean in the background and above all good words. The international summit held on December 9 in Almería with the participation of the leaders of Spain, France and Portugal – as well as the president of the European Comission (EC)— It served two purposes: the launch of the H2Med project, a hydrogen corridor that aspires to play a crucial role on the European energy map; and demonstrate that the infrastructure was born with the unanimous support of Madrid, Lisbon and Paris. That was the intention. And that was the effect.

Messages of unity aside, the project nevertheless started with a point of friction between Spain and France that was already visible at that summit: What type of hydrogen will circulate through the H2Med?

A bit of memory to start. After the frustrated MidCat trans-Pyrenean gas pipeline, which failed to overcome the French veto, Spain, Portugal and France decided to bet jointly on a “energy corridor” that would interconnect the Iberian Peninsula with the rest of Europe through a channel between Barcelona and Marseille. The agreement was advanced months ago, in October, but we had to wait until the summit in early December, held in Alicante, to find out its fundamental details. It was then when it was specified what the baptized as H2Med would consist of.

The infrastructure consists of two large sections: a 248-kilometre land pipeline between the Portuguese town of Celorico da Beira and Zamora and a Barcelona-Marseille submarine link that would be 455 km long and 2,557 m deep. Its objective: to create an energy corridor between the peninsula and the rest of Europe to channel hydrogen. Specifically, the H2Med aims to transport 10% of EU consumption in 2030, some two million tons a year.

a matter of colors. So far everything is correct. The debate that then remained bouncing on the table focuses on that last question: what exactly would the H2Med transport? Or to be more precise: what ‘color’ will be the hydrogen that it will channel? It is not a minor matter. The first hint on the subject was already given in October, when Sánchez, Macron and Costa announced a “political agreement” to promote an “energy corridor” that would allow the frustrated MidCat to be left behind.

What was noted then is that the channel that would link Spain and France should be an infrastructure centered on hydrogen, although “technically adapted” to transport other renewable gases and “a limited portion of natural gas as a temporary and transient source.” The problem is that when talking about hydrogen, Pedro Sánchez and Emmanuel Macron had different colors in mind: the first focused on green and the second thought of pink.

What’s that green and pink thing? An important label for what it tells us about the origin of hydrogen. To generate it, electricity is needed —fundamental in the electrolysis process that separates hydrogen (H2) from oxygen (O)— which can come from very different sources. The latter is an important nuance because depending on whether we use one or the other, the ‘surname’ of the H2 will be different. If it is produced with renewables, such as wind or photovoltaic, we are talking about green hydrogen. If energy from nuclear power plants is used for electrolysis, we have pink hydrogen.

Weeks ago it became clear that Spain and France collided on that point. Spain, with enormous potential for renewable energy, wants green hydrogen to circulate through the pipeline. France, a country in which nuclear energy has a prominent weight, is committed to also incorporating pink. “The will is for it to carry low-carbon hydrogen, clean hydrogen that can be achieved either with renewables, or with nuclear,” stressed the French president. To the good understander…

the last movement. The debate then remained in the air, like a pending task that —sources from Moncloa came to clarify to Europa Press— would be addressed over the next year. His resolution could be, however, much more on track than it seemed at the time. The Newspaper of Spain (EPE) just published that the three countries have sent the H2Med candidature to the Commission to opt for the category of Common Interest Project (PCI), a crucial label for your community funding. And in the technical project sent to Brussels, says EPE, it is contemplated that the H2Med is used only to transport green hydrogen. “It has been presented to the Commission as a green hydrogen only project”, confirm to the newspaper official sources aware of the proposal.

The project –abounds The Newspaper of Spain— reveals other interesting data, such as the fact that H2Med will only serve to export renewable gas from the peninsula to the rest of Europe, without a reverse flow. The documentation sent to Brussels states that it is not expected that the canal will be used so that Spain can import hydrogen from France and in fact the installation that it proposes does not include a compressor in Marseille that allows this supply.

The financing of the project, the great key. That the project obtains the PCI label is much more than a formality; is vital if it is to have the financial backing of Europe. If you get those acronyms between 30 and 50% of the necessary investment could come out of the community coffers. And that, in a project that will require 2,500 million euros, represents a crucial injection of funds.

The project starts with the good reception of the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, who He let his satisfaction be seen in Almería with the initiative: “I warmly welcome this agreement between France, Spain and Portugal because your H2Med project is going in the right direction. It has the potential to help us build a true European hydrogen backbone.”

Also in Xataka: France gives in and accepts a new gas pipeline from Spain: it is not the MidCat, but it is quite similar