The Vice President of the Government of Aragon, Arturo Aliaga, has visited several sustainable mobility projects, as well as production, transport and distribution renewable gases and technology transfer projects in the “Territory of Industry Lacq-Pau-Tarbes”, a public-private partnership initiative in which the State, the regions and the companies of the neighbouring country work in a coordinated manner.
Arturo Aliaga has visited Pau and other surrounding towns with the aim of strengthening collaboration in industrial development and supporting projects related to research, technological development and training, in areas such as renewable gases, hydrogen and fuel cells.
The Vice President, accompanied by the Director General of Industry and SMEs of the Government of Aragon, Javier Navarro Espada, and the managing Director of the Aragon Hydrogen Foundation, Fernando Palacín, visited some of the main projects being developed in this area. Specifically, those promoted under the so-called Lacq-Pau-Tarbes Territory of Industry, an initiative launched last year to coordinate the industrial development strategies of a large number of local communities.
The Vice President and Minister of Industry in Aragon has stressed that this agreement “is a tool for developing a common strategy between the business community in Aragon and the south of France”. Aliaga has highlighted that “Aragon is a pioneer region and is now positioned as a reference in hydrogen technologies, which are a path for the future. We are working with different projects with the aim of creating a collaboration to advance in European projects, with hydrogen as a strategic vector, in which Aragon has demonstrated its technological capacity”.
They were also able to learn about the FÉBUS project for hydrogen buses, which is already operating in the Pau-Béarn-Pyrénnées Community; the IMPULSE 64 initiative for injecting hydrogen into gas distribution networks, promoted by the company TEREGA; the CHEMSTART’UP R&D and the technolog transfer platform managed by GIP CHEMPARC, the public interest group that works in the chemical and industrial hub of the Lacq area, which inlucdes 30 companies with more than 7.500 jobs on 680 hectares, or the projects related to the hydrogen trains promoted by ALSTOM Tarbes.
The meeting also served to sign a collaboration agreement between the Foundation for the Development of New Hydrogen Technologies in Aragon and GIP CHEMPARCC (Groupement d’Intérêt Public CHEMPARC), which was signed by the presidents of both entities, Arturo Aliaga and Pierre Nerguararian respetively, and which contemplated cooperation to organize activites that promote research, innovation, technological development, training and dissemination in these fields.
In short, a profitable day that, in the words of the Vice President and Minister for Industry, Competitiveness and Business Development of the Government of Aragon, Arturo Aliaga, “demonstrates the advantages that can be derived for the territories of both countries from close collaboration in highly specialised industrial areas such as hydrogen, which are already generating business and employment opportunities in both Spain and France and which are decisive for carrying out the energy transition”.
