FCH Regions and cities initiative (http://www.fch.europa.eu/page/about-initiative) has set a series of workshops in different cities throughout February-March 2018. The first one took place on the 14thth of February in Puertollano (Spain) in the National Center of Hydrogen facilities. CIDAUT and Valladolid City Council had the opportunity to assist as part of the consortium of the initiative.
The workshop was attended by the mayor of Puertollano, Mayte Fernández, who together with the Minister of Economy of Castilla La Mancha, Patricia Franco, welcomed the opening of the Congress. Both stressed that the workshop was a good opportunity to expose the great potential of hydrogen in terms of energy. Emilio Nieto as Director of the National Center of Hydrogen made an introduction to give way to the beginning of the workshop.
The workshop also had the presence of Enrique Girón as a representative of the FCHJU who kindly attended to all the doubts of the attendees regarding the initiative, as well as other issues related to project financing. During the whole workshop the debate was moderated by the Roland Berger consultancy as coordinators of the initiative.
The different speakers were exposing the opportunities of hydrogen as an alternative energy source. Thus, Guillermo Figueruelo of the Hidrogeno Aragón Foundation presented the different projects they are involved such as HyER and BIGH2IT.
Carlos Funez presented the projects on hydrogen generation, hydrogen refueling stations and the promotion of hydrogen vehicles from the point of view of CNH2 and INDHO. Jose Antonio Gago from ENAGAS presented a flagship proposal on Hydrogen corridors to cover Spain and Portugal, a proposal that is supported by numerous entities that gathers a large consortium.
Regarding Valladolid, Henar Olmedo from CIDAUT stated that the City Council of Valladolid is working in a FCH roadmap, and, as signatory of the Covenant of Mayors, it has a Sustainable Energy and Savings Plan (SEAP). Any improvement of energy efficiency goes through the study and use of alternative energy to fossils such as renewable energy and can be hydrogen. The project to be implemented by the city council comes first in the awareness of citizens towards an unknown source of energy and reputed to be dangerous. Within the FCH technologies, the municipality has in mind the use of hydrogen in garbage trucks or buses.
Finally, as the closing of the event, the attendance of all the participants was appreciated and the next workshop was located in April, possibly in Santander.