By Sergio Goncalves
LISBON (Reuters) – Portugal’s two main glass producers and two biggest cement makers, together accounting for 10% of the country’s industrial carbon emissions, said on Tuesday they had joined a new consortium to launch a green hydrogen plant.
The consortium, named Nazare Green Hydrogen Valley (NGHV), is led by Portugal-based renewable gas producer Rega Energy and includes cement companies Cimpor and Secil, and glassmakers BA Glass and Crisal, NGHV said in a statement.
The four produce more than 1 million tonnes of CO2 emissions per year, equivalent to 2.5% of Portugal’s total CO2 emissions.
Portugal, in line with European guidelines, aims to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, with an intermediate goal of reducing emissions by between 45% and 55% from 2005 levels by 2030.
So-called green hydrogen, produced using electricity from renewable sources such as solar, is seen as a key power source that can reduce pollution from long-haul heavy transport and the cement, steel and glass industries.
“This is the largest scale project of this nature to be launched in Portugal,” NGHV said. “By decarbonising these companies, it will cut a significant share of total carbon emissions by industry nationwide.”
The consortium will develop the green hydrogen plant with an initial installed capacity of 40 megawatts (MW), which is expected to increase to up to 600 MW, it added.
The plant will be in central Portugal where the cement and glass makers have their factories. The consortium expects to start installing the infrastructure by 2023 and bring it onstream by the end of 2025.
The group will also invest an estimated more than 100 million euros ($113 million) in retrofitting the companies’ existing industrial processes to become carbon neutral, a figure that is expected to rise over time.
Water company Aguas do Centro Litoral (ACL) and power company Galp’s natural gas distribution unit are also part of the consortium.
Galp’s pipelines will transport the hydrogen, while ACL will supply wastewater to the electrolysis plant, which will use solar energy to separate water into hydrogen and oxygen.
(Reporting by Sergio Goncalves; Editing by Jan Harvey)
