Island of Tenerife plans to become a renewable hydrogen hub for mobility
The Port Authority of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Hyundai Canarias and Enagás have joined as partners to the SEAFUEL project, which aims to make Tenerife the first Spanish island to host a facility for the generation of sustainable hydrogen for transport. The initiative started at the end of 2017 with a budget of 3,497,632 euros and with the ambitious goal of using the renewable resources of the Atlantic Area to promote the generation and use of sustainable hydrogen in transport, supporting the transition towards a low carbon economy.
SEAFUEL plans to use renewable resources to demonstrate the feasibility of using hydrogen as fuel in isolated regions, promoting a sustainable transport system that can be adopted by other regions in the Atlantic. Its innovative approach is based on the connection of filling stations to photovoltaic, wind and sea energy installations, generating hydrogen fuel depending on the availability of resources.
Taking into account the experience and R&D capabilities of the Technological and Renewable Energy Institute, the project chose the island of Tenerife as a laboratory for the installation of a pilot plant, which will try to demonstrate the technological, social and economic viability of the implementation of renewable fuels for transportation.
In this way, the project plans to start up the first renewable hydrogen station in the Canary Islands, which will supply a small fleet of hydrogen vehicles for the maintenance of facilities. In this sense, the involvement of the Government of Tenerife as an associated participant in the project is essential, since it will allow capitalizing and adapting the results of the project to the needs of the public authorities that manage the local transport networks.
The numerous possibilities of the project and the future installation of this pilot plant on the island of Tenerife aroused the interest of different companies and entities, such as Hyundai Canarias, the Port Authority of Santa Cruz de Tenerife and Enagás, who recently joined the project as associates and whose participation will contribute to the capitalization and dissemination of project activities in Tenerife.
“The SEAFUEL consortium and the new partners will mark a before and after in the perception and use of clean fuels in the Canary Islands. We are convinced that the islands can show the way for a transition towards a low carbon economy,” said the coordinator of the project, Dr. Pau Farràs of the NUI Galway Faculty of Chemistry.
