Repsol Approves 400 Million Euro Hydrogen Plant in Tarragona
Repsol will build a 150 MW hydrogen electrolyzer in Tarragona with Enagás Renovable, with up to 104 million euros in aid and a thousand jobs expected.
Repsol has approved an investment of about 400 million euros to build a renewable hydrogen electrolyzer in Tarragona, according to ABC and La Vanguardia. The 150-megawatt (MW) plant will be developed with Enagás Renovable and is the largest renewable hydrogen investment the energy company has made so far.
The company expects the project to generate around a thousand direct, indirect and induced jobs, mostly local, across its different phases. The news comes while the Tarragona petrochemical industry is going through divestment and staff cuts, La Vanguardia notes, and the newspaper says an investment of this size and job impact has had very few precedents in the sector in the last five years.
What the plant will produce
Repsol says the electrolyzer will produce more than 22 thousand tonnes of renewable hydrogen a year. Most of it will go to the planned Ecoplanta and to the Tarragona refinery, where it will be used to make renewable methanol and other low-carbon products.
The Ecoplanta is being built in El Morell, in the province of Tarragona. La Vanguardia describes it as Spain’s first circular methanol plant, due to start operating in 2029. According to a Repsol statement quoted by the paper, it will turn non-recyclable urban waste into renewable methanol and circular products, while the electrolyzer supplies hydrogen for new lines of fuels and lower-carbon products. Repsol’s own estimate is that the hydrogen production will avoid up to 250 thousand tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions each year.
Public money behind it
The project has been selected to receive up to 104 million euros in public funding under the state Valles de Hidrógeno (Hydrogen Valleys) program. The Ministry for the Ecological Transition runs the program with European Next Generation EU recovery funds, ABC reports. The electrolyzer is meant to anchor two hydrogen areas: the Hydrogen Valley of Catalonia and the Ebro Hydrogen Corridor.
ABC also reports that the partnership with Enagás Renovable includes a 25% stake in the project.
Repsol’s other hydrogen sites
Tarragona is Repsol’s third large renewable hydrogen project, after Cartagena with 100 MW and Petronor with 100 MW. Together the three will reach 350 MW, ABC says. Repsol has produced renewable hydrogen at Petronor since 2023 and has further electrolyzers in the final stage of construction in Bilbao and Sines in Portugal.
What it means for Tarragona
For the Tarragona industrial complex, the electrolyzer and the Ecoplanta are two linked projects. The company calls them strategic and complementary. Maribel Rodríguez, Repsol’s renewable hydrogen director, described them as an “integrated industrial platform” that places Tarragona at the center of the company’s transformation and strengthens the competitiveness of the petrochemical complex.
Javier Sancho, who runs Repsol’s Tarragona complex, said the company is in a new stage marked by decarbonization, circularity and digitalization. Luis Iglesias of Enagás Renovable called the project a way to bring renewable hydrogen to places where industrial demand already exists.
The figures on jobs, hydrogen output and avoided emissions are company estimates.
Sources: ABC, La Vanguardia
