Spanish integrated energy company Repsol's subsidiary Petronor has consolidated its decarbonisation projects in Spain's Basque region into a single company called Alba Emission Free Energy.
Alba will be responsible for Petronor's drive to bring 20,000 t/yr of hydrogen production on stream by 2025 and its applications in the production of synthetic fuels, biofuels and energy storage.
Repsol recently upped its 2025 target for Spanish hydrogen production capacity through electrolysis to 550MW from 400MW previously.
Petronor and its 240,000 b/d Bilbao refinery are developing some of Repsol's most technically challenging hydrogen projects, such as Europe's first alkaline water electrolyser with a capacity of 100MW. It also has plans for a plant to extract green hydrogen from urban waste and biomass. Both projects are expected on stream by 2025.
Alba will manage the promotion and development of the projects and a further 12MW of conventional hydrogen electrolysis. The production will help the Basque regional government's initiative to promote the use of renewable hydrogen through the BH2C consortium, and contribute to Petronor's own synthetic and biofuels projects.
Petronor has earmarked €58mn ($69mn) for a pilot plant at its Bilbao refinery, which will use green hydrogen and CO2 produced at the facility to make synthetic fuels. If successful, it will be expanded into a larger plant with 200,000-500,000 t/yr of production capacity by the end of the decade.
The company is also investing €29.2mn in a pilot pyrolysis plant to extract gas from solid urban waste at the port of Bilbao with the capacity to process 10,000 t/yr of waste at an initial stage and plans to increase this to 100,000 t/yr. But it is unclear when the initial stage will come on stream.
Petronor's Bilbao refinery recently produced Repsol's first batch of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) from waste.
