Interview with David Fernández about the green hydrogen plant in Puertollano.

As we mentioned in the previous post, our colleagues at ICONSA will provide Engineering services specialised in Oil&Gas for the construction of Iberdrola’s Puertollano green hydrogen plant. Iberdrola will be supported by ICONSA in the design of what will be the largest green hydrogen plant in Europe during the first half of 2021. Click here to learn about all the project details.

We are unstoppable. This time, IDEA Group is fully involved in sustainable energy projects such as the industrial use of green hydrogen. A strategic project 100% developed by IDEAGREEN following a fixed path towards the planet decarbonisation.

On the occasion of this great sustainable and pioneering project, we interviewed David Fernández López, Technical Manager at ICONSA and an expert in the design of industrial facilities for handling hydrogen, who told us all the details of this great opportunity.

Interview with David Fernández, Technical Manager at Iconsa, about the green hydrogen plant in Puertollano.

Thanks to ICONSA’s extensive experience in green hydrogen, we are currently initiating the first projects to take advantage of hydrogen technology for its industrial use.

Iconsa has more than 20 years of experience in handling hydrogen in installations for the petrochemical and fertiliser industries, the main industries that consume and handle hydrogen. In terms of projects carried out, I could mention a number of works done for large companies such as Repsol, Fertibería or ILBOC, among others, throughout all these years.

In general terms, the work consists of using electricity via renewable sources, in this case, photovoltaic energy, to generate clean hydrogen from water and its subsequent use/sending to the current ammonia plant.

Iconsa will develop two types of works. On the one hand, the engineering and design of the compression, storage and delivery facilities for the oxygen generated, and the venting and emergency facilities for the hydrogen units will be carried out.

On the other hand, supervision and support works will be carried out for Iberdrola as a specialist in hydrogen installations, commenting and checking the documents prepared in the development of the oxygen and hydrogen facilities engineering.

I could say that we have become an engineering company specialised in Oil&Gas and the design of hydrogen installations.

It is the first major project for the storage or manufacturing of hydrogen for industrial use based on an electrolysis system. As any innovative project, it will pose new challenges throughout the project that will force us to make a greater effort to overcome them. This experience will enrich us and will be the basis to face the implementation of this technology in other industrial projects.

Theoretically, in the first quarter of 2022, and it will be commissioned at the end of December 2021.

No, this is the first plant in Spain to use green hydrogen as an industry raw material, although the possibility of building another larger green hydrogen plant in Huelva, also for Fertiberia, is already being analysed.

The term “green ammonia” refers to ammonia manufactured from green hydrogen, or hydrogen obtained from renewable or clean energy sources.

Hydrogen is obtained from the electrolysis process, which is the decomposition of water molecules (H2O) into its elements, hydrogen (H2) and oxygen (O2), when an external electric current (electricity from renewable sources) is applied, being hydrogen the one used as the raw material for ammonia.

It is important to note that ammonia is one of the chemical products with the highest power consumption among all high-volume chemical products, and it is essential for the manufacture of fertilisers. So it is a big step towards sustainability to be able to create emission-free or “green” fertilizers.

Of course I do! I believe that this can be a launching platform for similar industrial use projects, not only at the national level, but also at the international level. Whether for the petrochemical, pharmaceutical, fertiliser or food industry, which use hydrogen as a source or raw material in their processes.

If we are talking about green hydrogen as a source of energy, and not in industrial use, and that future is 25 years from now, I am totally convinced, but in the short term I do not think so. I believe that it does have a greater potential for industrial use. For it to be a viable energy source, a major effort to redevelop the entire infrastructure of the country would have to be carried out. As I mentioned earlier, energy storage is one of the great challenges that will be faced by the sector in the coming years.

Hydrogen does indeed have a very bad reputation as a flammable product, but its behaviour, under the right conditions, is even more noble than petrol. Among its features, hydrogen is a very light, volatile compound, easily dispersed and with a higher autoignition temperature than petrol itself. In short, with the right design, it is safe.

Of course there are. Professionals coming from the Oil & Gas sector, where hydrogen is regularly handled, are used to working with gases containing hydrogen, so they have experience and knowledge that qualifies them to work with green hydrogen.