Chile is poised to become a major hydrogen supplier to Europe amid predictions of surging demand for the clean fuel and its derivatives, Asunción Borrás, head of hydrogen business development at Engie Chile, told BNamericas.
With some 50 projects announced, Chile is capitalizing on world-class renewable energy sources and a rapidly growing local value chain.
“Chile has the foundations to be an important player in the world of renewable hydrogen,” Borrás said in an email interview.
“It has the best photovoltaic resource in the world, a wind resource, there is support and will from the State for the development of the industry, there is land, infrastructure, coast and ports to export hydrogen or its derivatives, there is an industry with high potential for local consumption – mining. All of this is reflected in the pipeline of projects under development by relevant players in the energy sector.”
In Chile, Engie has proposed supplying 3,200t/y green hydrogen to explosives manufacture Enaex for green ammonia production. With planned electrolyzer capacity of 26MW, the Antofagasta region project, HyEx, was granted a US$9.5mn subsidy by state development agency Corfo for electrolyzer acquisition support and is due to enter service by end-2025.
Second-phase work on HyEx, planned for sundrenched Antofagasta region, would involve installing 3GW of solar panels, 2GW of electrolyzer capacity, a hydrogen pipeline and associated industrial installations.
“Europe looks at Chile as a candidate for its imports of hydrogen/derivatives, given the competitiveness that production in Chile must achieve and the needs for diversification of the supply matrix that Europe should have to avoid situations that have been precedents with other energy sources,” Borrás added.
The full interview with Borrás, who will be a panelist at the RENMAD Chile 2023 conference in Santiago on August 2-3, can be seen here.