José Ignacio Linares Hurtado
Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Director of the Repsol Foundation Chair in Energy Transition at Comillas Pontifical University
The agreement is twofold: one on gas and the other on electricity. The new aspect as such is the electricity side, whereby France undertakes to increase electricity interconnections, something that should have been done years ago. On the gas side, this is not new, as the European Hydrogen Backbone initiative, which consists of an EU-wide hydrogen transport infrastructure, has been in place for some time.
On the hydrogen side, it is envisaged that of the 53,000 km network (2040), 60% will come from the re-use of the existing gas system and the rest from new infrastructure. The average cost, including compression equipment (which must be new) is estimated at around 100 billion euros, and will involve transport costs of between 0.15 and 0.22 €/kg per 1000 km. The MidCat was already listed on the initiative's website as new infrastructure, as well as new submarine hydro-products (e.g. one between Barcelona and northern Italy). Therefore, the agreement has meant changing MidCat to BarMar, but it is still an infrastructure that was already planned. What the agreement has allowed, apparently, is to overcome French environmental reluctance to cross the Pyrenees.
It is, therefore, an infrastructure for the future, to transport green hydrogen, already planned at European level, which has been adapted to solve an environmental constraint. It can be used temporarily to transport natural gas, but the timeframe is not adequate for it to solve, even partially, the current problem.