We participate in the two projects of common European interest to be developed in Aragon. Aragon marks the leadership in the technology that uses hydrogen as an energy vector. There are 35 projects of common European interest, 7 will be developed in Spain and two of them will be developed in Aragon.
Aliaga chairs the 39th meeting of the Board of Trustees of the Hydrogen Aragon Foundation (FHa), which celebrates its 20th anniversary grouping 92 companies and research centers.
Arturo Aliaga, vice-president of the Government of Aragon and president of the Foundation for the Development of New Hydrogen Technologies in Aragon, has chaired the 39th meeting of the Board of Trustees of the FHa, which has served to approve the Action Plan for 2023. It will be then when the Foundation will celebrate its first 20 years of life, which it will commemorate with a complete program of events distributed throughout the year, which it is already working on defining.
Aliaga pointed out that this meeting, the 39th of the Board of Trustees, “is being held at a special time, because in 2023 the Foundation will be twenty years old”. In addition, the vice-president added, “my satisfaction is that, after this time, everything now revolves around hydrogen, the PERTES and other recent European announcements on the corridors. On the other hand, in the 2023 budgets we have one million euros to strengthen the activity of the Foundation, with some novel investments to provide hydrogen supply at 700 kilos of pressure, to give greater autonomy to vehicles.”
“In these twenty years we have obtained more than 35 million euros of funds for Aragon. The figures show that this is a fundamental project for the Government because it has positioned Aragon in a preeminent place; in fact, two major European projects of community interest are being developed in Aragon and are at the highest level. To which we must add a third one, which we have already declared of regional interest, and which is an electrolyzer to produce green hydrogen in the industrial estate of El Burgo de Ebro”.
The Foundation will update its green hydrogen generation infrastructures in 2023
The Aragon Hydrogen Foundation will manage a budget of 3.1 million euros in 2023, which will allow to undertake the renovation of some of its key infrastructures for hydrogen generation from renewable resources, a field in which the entity has been a pioneer and international reference throughout its history. In this same line, the Foundation will upgrade its hydrogen supply station to 700 bar pressure within a project co-financed by the Ministry of Science and Innovation and the Government of Aragon, a technical breakthrough that significantly extends the autonomy of the vehicles that refuel in it, equating it to that of traditional fuels. In the same way, and in order to start up the activities foreseen in the approved Action Plan 2023, an increase of the staff, currently composed by 35 people -15 women and 20 men- with wide experience in the management of hydrogen projects, is being considered. In this sense, it should be noted that the Foundation, which continues to increase its participation in national and international projects that are decisive in favoring the implementation of this technology, works simultaneously in more than 25, promoted under different calls for proposals by institutions such as the European Commission, the ministries of the Government of Spain or the Government of Aragon itself.
A Board of Trustees composed of 92 companies and research centers
The Aragon Hydrogen Foundation has approved the entry of the Federation of Metal Entrepreneurs of Zaragoza (FEMZ) in its Board of Trustees, which now includes 92 companies and research centers, as well as the appointment of the civil servant of the Administration of the Autonomous Community Cristina Asensio as new secretary of the entity, replacing Juan Ramon Ochoa, also a civil servant, recently retired and who has held this responsibility for nearly two decades.
The meeting also served to present the two Important Projects of Common European Interest (IPCEI) supported in Aragon by the European Commission to support the industrial value chain of renewable hydrogen given its strategic nature. The first one, promoted by En el Green Power España and Industrias Químicas del Ebro and the second IPCEI project, presented and led by Tervalis and EDPR, plans the installation of a 25MW electrolyzer plant for innovative uses of green hydrogen. Both initiatives represent a significant part of the seven that have initially received the endorsement of Brussels throughout Spain regarding the uses of hydrogen and its industrial and energy applications.
