Spain plans to distribute €400mn ($417mn) among renewable hydrogen projects that met the criteria to compete in the EU's pilot Hydrogen Bank auction in 2024 but whose bids were too high to be selected for subsidies.
The funding will add to €1.32bn to be allocated "in the next few weeks" to large-scale hydrogen clusters as part of Spain's Perte Hydrogen Valley scheme, according to prime minister Pedro Sanchez.
Spain submitted 46 projects with a combined 2.9GW of electrolysis capacity to the Hydrogen Bank auctions in April 2024. Three of the seven projects selected from the 119 eligible bids lodged by EU countries were Spanish, although developer Benbros Energy eventually decided not to claim its operating subsidies of €0.38/kg of renewable hydrogen produced.
The support announced by Sanchez for eligible projects that missed out on the operating subsidies was at the top end of the €280mn-400mn range proposed by Spain after the auction. The €1.32bn for hydrogen valley Perte is higher than the €1.2bn originally announced.
Sanchez defended Spain's focus on renewables and low-carbon energy vectors such as green hydrogen, which he cited as a driver for the country's 3.5pc year-on-year fourth quarter GDP growth, as reported this week by national statistics institute INE.
"We are going to continue on this path, we are going to reinforce our policy of 'green, baby, green'," Sanchez said, an allusion to US President Donald Trump's "drill, baby, drill" promise to unleash the full potential of the US oil and gas industry.
