The president of Ancap, Alejandro Stipanicic, anticipated that the production of the Uruguayan plant will be sold to Europe.
He green hydrogen produced by the Paysandú plant recently announced by President Luis Lacalle Pou will be destined for export, as confirmed the head of Ancap, Alejandro Stipanicic, by providing details of the project that involves the largest investment in the history of Uruguay.
While synthetic fuels are more expensive than fossil fuels, Stipanicic noted that Europe “is willing to pay more money to decarbonise”, for which he admitted to Radio Carve that within a few years “it is expected” that the production of the project in which the company HIF Global will disburse about 4 billion dollars “remains for export and not the local market”.
The president of Ancap acknowledged that work in the sector began in 2008, although in 2020 the state company changed its focus to “develop knowledge about hydrogen and fuels for the energy transition”. On this point, he added that he also focused “on knowledge of the sea, which is very important for oil exploitation” and anticipated: “For the first time Uruguay will have all the blocks in the sea under an oil contract.”
When referring to the details of the project, which plans to install an alkaline electrolyser of 1 GW of power and the installation of 2 GW of additional renewable electricity generation in the country, Stipanicic expressed: “At a peak moment, the demand for electrical energy in Uruguay is 2.4 GW. So this project requires almost the same.”
Uruguay is positioned worldwide for green hydrogen
The country became the main producer of green hydrogen at the regional level and is emerging internationally for having important sources of wind and solar energy. On this point, Stipanicic expressed: “There is sun and wind everywhere, but not everywhere there is the quantity and quality that there is in Uruguay.”
These advantages, he argued, “position the country as a potential producer of renewable electricity to produce green hydrogen, to the point of being among the best in the world.” To this, he added “the interest of international companies in capture the 145,000 tons of CO2 that we emit per year”.
Finally, when asked why he was chosen paysandu for the plant contemplating a historic investment, he gave several reasons, including logistics. “The pier that we are remodeling allows departure from Paysandú to Nueva Palmira, Montevideo and the sea. The logistics output is already solved with infrastructure that Ancap has”, he highlighted.
Source: Ambito
