Engie and Masdar establish a USD 5 billion green hydrogen alliance

French Engi Established a strategic alliance with Masdar, a renewable energy company based in Abu Dhabi, focusing on the development of green hydrogen-related projects.

In an announcement last weekend, the two companies stated that the agreement will “explore the joint development of a green hydrogen center in the UAE.”

Although the details of the plan are relatively few, these companies will seek to develop projects with an electrolyzer capacity of 2 gigawatts.

Investment in this initiative will reach approximately US$5 billion. In a statement, Engie CEO Catherine MacGregor described renewable hydrogen as “an important tool for the energy transition.”

Engie and Masdar stated that they will use the existing infrastructure “to initially target local supply with the aim of expanding production capacity and creating a giga-scale green hydrogen center for GCC, which may be exported to other markets.”

The Gulf Cooperation Council refers to the Gulf Cooperation Council, which is composed of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and Oman.

Hydrogen has a wide range of applications and can be deployed in a wide range of industries. It can be produced in many ways.

One method involves the use of electrolysis, which uses electric current to split water into oxygen and hydrogen.

If the electricity used in this process comes from renewable energy sources such as wind or solar energy, some people call it green or renewable hydrogen.

As a member of the OPEC oil cartel, the United Arab Emirates is an important producer of crude oil and natural gas. It also has a lot of sunlight-a key component of solar installations.

In May, a project in Dubai was described as “the first industrial-scale, solar-powered green hydrogen facility in the Middle East and North Africa” Opening.

In a statement at the time, Siemens Energy The power for the pilot project will come from the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park, a huge solar facility that is expected to have a production capacity of 5,000 megawatts by 2030.

The agreement between Engie and Masdar, announced on Friday, followed the Spanish power company Ibedrolla And Sweden’s H2 Green Steel Cooperate and develop a major facility for the production of green hydrogen.

Last Thursday, the two companies stated that the 2.3 billion euro (2.6 billion US dollars) project will enable them to build a green hydrogen facility with an electrolysis capacity of 1 GW.

Although people are excited about the potential of hydrogen energy, some business leaders remain cautious when assessing its prospects, at least in the short term.

Take July as an example, Enel CEO Francesco Starace said “There is no capital competition between hydrogen energy and renewable energy.”

“Today’s hydrogen is a niche market. It is a niche market that needs to develop into a commercial standard and… a large industry at a competitive price,” Starace said, implying that this transition may take 10 years.