French President Emmanuel Macron announced today that Germany will join the “H2Med” energy interconnection project, the first hydroduct to will connect the Iberian Peninsula with the rest of Europe and that it will be operational in 2030.
“We have decided to extend ‘H2Med’, which thanks to European funds unites Portugal, Spain and France, to Germany, which will be a partner in the infrastructure of this project,” Macron said at the end of the Franco-German Summit. that sought to shelve the tensions between Paris and Berlin in 2022.
Macron pointed out, in a joint appearance with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, at the end of the summit, that there is “a will” to promote green hydrogen at a European level. In this sense, the French president recalled that this project is more viable than the MidCat, the plan originally defended by Spain and Portugal for the transportation of gas.
“The MidCat was not the good strategy, which was to transport gas and that it crossed the Pyrenees, now it is the good strategy, which goes through the Mediterranean,” he considered. Scholz, who at the time supported the MidCat and for a while tried to “convince” Macron to complete it, now considered that the hydroduct “is a good project for the future” and also valued its “good European anchorage”, for bringing together its partners Spanish and Portuguese, as well as French.
For her part, Vice President Teresa Ribera has assured that “it is excellent news that Germany express its interest in joining this project in being the recipient of part of that hydrogen that, once it has covered the economic possibilities of the Iberian Peninsula, can be transported to northern Europe”.
France, Spain and Portugal had agreed at the Euro-Mediterranean summit in Alicante, on December 9, the construction of this submarine hydroduct between Barcelona and Marseille. This agreement will allow the transport of green hydrogen throughout Europe in a context of searching for alternatives to polluting energy sourcesin moments of crisis due to the war in Ukraine.
The project includes two cross-border infrastructures, one between Celorico da Beira (Portugal) and Zamora, and another submarine, between Barcelona and Marseille, as well as two trunk axes. The macroproject, which will be financed up to 50% by European fundswill allow hydrogen obtained with renewable energies to be brought to the EU.
In a statement, the Spanish government also announced that Germany will join the project and said that “H2Med will be operational in 2030 and it is expected to be capable of transporting 2 million tons of green hydrogen per year from Spain, which will represent 10% of the total consumed by the EU”. “In 2050 it is estimated that 20% of all energy in Europe will be renewable hydrogen”, indicated the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge of Spain.
Source: Lasexta
Mario Twitchell is an accomplished author and journalist, known for his insightful and thought-provoking writing on a wide range of topics including general and opinion. He currently works as a writer at 247 news agency, where he has established himself as a respected voice in the industry.
