Spain's first offshore plant to generate green hydrogen will be in the Canary Islands

The Oceanic Platform of the Canary Islands (Plocan) will build the first offshore green hydrogen generation plant in Spain with a production capacity of up to 15 tons per year and will serve as a real laboratory to test its use in the marine environment.

As reported this Friday by Plocan in a statement, the construction of the plant is part of the H2Verde project, co-financed by the Government of the Canary Islands and the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan, with European Next Generation EU funds.

Its implementation will favor the decarbonization and energy autonomy of the archipelago, transforming mobility and the blue economy and promoting sustainability in the islands.

The plant will be installed on the Plocan marine platform, located 1.5 km from the coast of Gran Canaria, the note states.

The system includes an electrolyzer that, through the use of renewable energies (solar, wind and marine renewable energy prototypes), separates water into hydrogen and oxygen; a fuel cell that allows the stored hydrogen to be converted back into electricity when necessary and batteries to store energy.

It will also have a hydrogen dispenser (also called a hydrogen station or hydrogenerator), the first of its kind in a marine environment in Spain, to recharge forklifts and, in the future, ships and other marine vehicles, such as autonomous surface vehicles ('gliders'), among others.

In fact, this type of hydrogen could power industrial vehicles and port machinery, replacing fossil fuels in key sectors such as port, tourism and logistics, paving the way for emission-free operations in these areas.

In addition, the project will favor the complete decarbonization of the Plocan marine platform, covering its entire energy demand in a sustainable way that will save the emission of more than 200 tons of CO2 per year into the atmosphere.

According to the coordinator of the H2Verde project, Alejandro Romero, green hydrogen is consolidating as an opportunity to create new sectors, attract talent and position the islands as an international benchmark in clean energy and the blue economy.

"The use of renewable hydrogen can reduce CO2 emissions by 20% worldwide," said Romero, who added that the European Union intends this energy vector to represent 20% of the energy mix in its territory by 2050, with a special presence in heavy transport.

Green hydrogen is a clean fuel, produced from renewable energies such as the sun, wind or sea, and its use allows energy to be stored and transported without generating polluting emissions, the note emphasizes.