Madrid – Argentina reaffirms the need to “strengthen the infrastructure” of the national hydrogen industry to take advantage of the “potential” that the country has to place itself “on the global map of producers and exporters” of hydrogen. this fuel, and seeks European funding for it.
“From the point of view of financing, it is very pertinent to find resources that allow developing the necessary infrastructure to reach that potential,” explained the National Director of Projects with Bilateral External Financing of the Secretariat of Strategic Affairs of Argentina, Matías Mana, in a interview with EFE in Madrid.
Mana traveled this week to Luxembourg, Germany, France and Spain to raise European funding.
Despite the fact that the objective of the Argentine Government is to produce green hydrogen, the director acknowledged that “particularly working” with blue hydrogen will be considered.
The difference lies in the origin of their production: in the case of green, they are renewable energies such as wind or solar, and in the case of blue, natural gas.
After a meeting with the European Investment Bank and the French Development Agency, an investment of 100 million euros was agreed, by each of these entities, for an electricity transmission project.
The objective is to “improve” the necessary infrastructure to “promote the development of renewable energy generation projects.”
In this sense, Mana specified that “a large part of these lines” are located in areas with a “high potential” for solar and wind energy generation, such as Patagonia and northeastern Argentina.
It could even be possible for towns such as Villa La Angostura (Patagonia) “to do without (fossil) fuels to generate the electricity they need.”
This project, as he clarified, “is not an accident”, but is in line with the National Hydrogen Strategy 2022-2050 of the national government, by allowing “interconnect this generation of renewable energies”, which they hope to culminate “in the short term ”.
Although countries such as Germany, Japan, Korea or Australia have already shown interest in the country’s fuel industry, Mana insisted on the importance of generating a regulatory framework that allows direct and private investment in the sector, adding that the forecast is finish defining it before the end of the year.
For the director, the strategy “must have as its main focus the export of hydrogen production” because “in terms of internal consumption, in Argentina it is not sustainable.”
“RELAUNCH” THE INVESTMENT RELATIONSHIP WITH SPAIN
Asked about the meetings he held in Madrid with the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID), the Spanish Development Financing Company (COFIDES) and the Official Credit Institute (ICO), Mana explained that they worked as a “prospection ”.
In them, he made a “general review” of the portfolio of projects that could be of interest to these institutions.
“I think we are very much in harmony with regard to the priority lines of interest”, he pointed out after advancing that “in the coming weeks” it will be decided which initiatives will finally be presented to Spanish investment.
In addition to the aforementioned electricity transmission project, several water and sanitation projects were identified as areas of interest for Spanish financing, such as water treatment plants, sewers, lifting stations to transport river water to remote areas, and even plans for flood control.
“Next year, Spain is going to become a relevant actor in the European Union (by assuming the presidency of the EU in the second semester) and we want to reach that instance with concrete things to take advantage of the opportunity,” he commented.
“We are at the right time to relaunch relations that have always been strong and very fruitful,” he concluded.
SOURCE: 1XBET
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