Part of EDP’s investment in Portugal over the next four years will be in green hydrogen.
The first green hydrogen molecule will be produced by EDP in six months. The company announced this Thursday the strategic plan that includes three billion euros of investment in Portugal and includes two green hydrogen projects.
This will be produced at the old thermoelectric plant in Sines (already deactivated) and at the natural gas combined cycle plant in Ribatejo, but as EDP’s president, Miguel Stilwell de Andrade, points out, this does not mean that natural gas will disappear from Ribatejo.
“We may not become the natural owner of these (natural gas) plants, but we can find partners. I think that natural gas will continue to be part of the energy mix in Europe in general and will only be phased out during this decade,” says the president of EDP.
As for green hydrogen, EDP administrator Ana Paula Alves presents the timetable for this technology within the company: “The forecast is that the first H2 molecule will be produced in Portugal in September 2023.”
Ricardo Almeida/Correio da Manhã
Also at this press conference, EDP’s CEO was asked if the Portuguese government could proceed with the windfall tax that several European countries are applying, but Miguel Stilwell de Andrade recalls that Portugal “already has the Extraordinary Contribution to the Energy Sector (CESE), which has been in place since 2014. We’ve had a windfall tax for many years and it was expected to be reduced with the debt of the system, which has been falling, but not yet the CESE.
At this press conference, EDP Comercial also announced that it had lost 136,000 residential gas customers who left because of the tariff increases, but the company assures that it keeps about half a million customers.
The president of EDP was also asked about the attacks by climate activists on the company’s headquarters in Lisbon with yellow paint.
For Miguel Stilwell de Andrade, this is an attack that is not justified because “EDP is on the path of decarbonization.