Repsol SA has approved construction of its first large-scale renewable hydrogen production plant at the operator’s 220,000-b/d Cartagena refinery in Spain’s southeastern province of Murcia, along the Mediterranean Sea.
Scheduled for startup in 2029, the planned 100-Mw electrolyzer will be equipped to produce up to 15,000 tonnes/year (tpy) of renewable hydrogen for industrial use, the company said.
Planned for integration into existing operations at the Cartagena industrial site, the new electrolyzer will use water and electricity sourced from renewable power to generate renewable hydrogen to serve as feedstock primarily for the refinery’s production of lower-carbon fuels and materials.
With its 75% stake in the joint project, Repsol—currently the Iberian Peninsula’s largest hydrogen producer and consumer—will lead the project in partnership with Enagás Renovable SA, which holds a 25% interest in the development.
Estimated to require an investment of more than €300 million, the proposed project forms part of Repsol’s broader strategy to replace conventional, fossil-based hydrogen with low-emissions alternatives across its refining and petrochemical operations.
Repsol said it expects the Cartagena electrolyzer will create about 900 jobs during the development and construction phases of the project.
Confirmation of the project at Cartagena follows Repsol’s commissioning in October 2023 of its first smaller-scale renewable hydrogen plant—consisting of a 2.5-Mw electrolyzer that produces 350 tpy of green hydrogen—at subsidiary Petróleos del Norte SA’s (Petronor) 220,000-b/d refinery and industrial complex at Múskiz, near Bilbao, Biscay Province, in Spain’s northern autonomous Basque Country.
Public support, future plans
Anticipated to become a central component of Murcia’s regional Hydrogen Valley initiative—a public-private effort to develop a local hydrogen ecosystem—the Cartagena refinery’s electrolyzer project, once online, aims to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by as much as 167,000 tpy.
In early June, Spain's Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge (MITECO) officially awarded the green hydrogen project—previously designated as an Important Project of Common European Interest (IPCEI) by the European Commission—€155 million in public funding under the Institute for the Diversification and Saving of Energy (IDAE) to be allocated and distributed from Spain’s Recovery, Transformation, and Resilience Plan (PRTR).
Greenlighting of the Cartagena project comes amid Repsol’s efforts to advance its hydrogen strategy is tandem with Spain’s national hydrogen roadmap, which targets 4 Gw of electrolyzer capacity and 25% renewable hydrogen use in industrial consumption by 2030.
Repsol said the electrolyzer at Cartagena also enables the possibility for future implementation of renewable hydrogen into the Spanish natural gas grid and the Enagás-led Spanish Hydrogen Backbone pipeline and storage system.
