Hydrogen Interconnector Spain-Portugal

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Hydrogen Interconnector Spain-Portugal was a proposed hydrogen pipeline in Spain and Portugal. It is currently considered cancelled, because it was rebranded as part of the H2Med Pipeline and is categorized as part of that system now.

Location

The pipeline is proposed to run from Zamora, Spain to Celorico, Portugal.

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Project details

• Operator: Enagás, REN Gasodutos, S.A.
• Owner: Enagás, REN Gasodutos, S.A.
• Parent company: Enagás, State Grid Corporation of China, Pontegadea Inversiones S.L, Other.
• Capacity:
• Length: 248 km
• Diameter: 700 mm
• Status: Cancelled
  • Originally Proposed as a natural gas pipeline
• Start year: 2025
• Cost:
• Financing:
• Associated infrastructure:

Background

The Celourico-Vale de Frades project would be the first stage of an international pipeline that would continue 86 kilometers across the border to Zamora, Spain. The Spanish section of the pipeline would be known as the Spain-Portugal Interconnector Gas Pipeline. Both pipelines form part of a larger international pipeline project designed to create a single gas market within the European Union. Some of the gas imported from Spain would also be stored at caverns in the salt dome formations of Carriço, Portugal for potential use in a future emergency.

The European Network of Transmission System Operators for Gas (ENTSOG) refers to the project using the project code "TRA-A-283". Together with "TRA-N-168" (Zamora-Barbolla-Adradas Gas Pipeline) it is a part of the "WEST 02" project group which is the first stage of the 3rd Interconnection between Portugal and Spain project.

The European Union's 2021-2030 National Energy and Climate Plan for Portugal states that the Celorico–Vale de Frades gas pipeline is directly dependent on completion of the South Transit Eastern Pyrenees (STEP) Gas Pipeline between France and Spain. However, the latter project was canceled in early 2019, leaving the future of the Celorico–Vale de Frades project unclear.

The European Network of Transmission System Operators for Gas (ENTSOG) Ten-Year Network Development Plan (TYNDP) published in November 2020 notes in its Project Details Annex that, since the last TYNDP, REN Gasodutos is predicting a three year delay to the anticipated project schedule. This is in part due to a rejection in 2018 of the project's environmental impact assessment by the Portuguese national environmental authority. As a result, the company is required to: adjust the initial route, though maintaining the same point of interconnection with Spain; prepare a new Front-End-Engineering Design (FEED), and; restart the environmental permitting process.

However, the 2022 updated version of the ENTSOG TYNDP features this project as a Hydrogen-ready pipeline for carrying green hydrogen and other renewable gases. The pipeline is part of the HyDeal Espana project, which features a green hydrogen supply chain with 4.5 GW of electrolyzers powered by dedicated solar farms in central Spain will produce around 200,000 mt/year of hydrogen.

This project is listed in ENTSOG's Ten-Year Network Development plan as a hydrogen-ready pipeline. It is also part of the European Hydrogen Backbone.