Smartenergy’s growth has been spectacular in recent years. Among the most relevant projects that the Swiss group is developing in our country, the Orange.bat green hydrogen project in Castellón and the Fuencarral Cluster solar project in the north of Toledo and southeast of Madrid stand out.
What does the company do and what has been its evolution in recent years?
Smartenergy is a Swiss investment and project promotion group, specialised in developing solar, wind and green hydrogen projects, with special emphasis on derivatives such as e-SAF, e-ammonia and e-methanol. We have an active presence in Spain, Portugal, Italy and Germany with local development teams in each of these countries. Our strategy involves the sale of assets in solar projects and maintaining a majority stake in hydrogen and derivatives projects. In 2024 we have opened a commercial office in Abu Dhabi to attract capital from the United Arab Emirates to synthetic fuel projects. The group has grown a lot in the last four years, going from less than 40 people in 2019 to 440 today globally. Part of this growth has come with the integration of the Prodiel Group within our structure, which was completed last year and has been consolidated in 2024. We have currently built and put into operation more than 7 GW globally, mainly solar, and we have a portfolio of renewable projects of 12 GW in different development states and 4.5 GW of hydrogen and derivatives projects. Of the 12 GW, there are 4 GW in Spain of which 2.8 GW are in the advanced stage of development.
What projects are you developing in Spain?
In hydrogen we are developing four projects to replace natural gas with green hydrogen. The most advanced is Orange.bat, whose first phase is oriented to the ceramic cluster of the Onda valley, Villarreal and Betxí (Castellón), with 100 MW of electrolysis capacity and about 200 million of investment. We are waiting to receive the integrated environmental authorisation and we are preparing everything to present it to the European Hydrogen Bank call from December 3rd. We expect it to come into operation in the first half of 2027. In parallel, we are making progress in closing commercial agreements for the sale of hydrogen for the companies of the cluster. We have also launched phase two of Orange.bat, located in Alcora and of 80 MW of power, of which we are in the concept engineering phase. The third project is in Sagunto, of 80 MW and aimed at companies from different sectors of the area, for which we have also launched the application for integrated environmental authorisation. The fourth project is in Zaragoza, with 90 MW of electrolysis capacity and intended for the entire industrial perimeter of the area. A relevant issue is that the four projects will be very close to the future H2med of Enagás, so that, from 2030, we will have the option of exporting, mainly to Germany, part of the hydrogen production. On the other hand, we are studying the feasibility of developing projects for the production of synthetic fuels for aviation in Spain, as well as a project for the maritime sector, for which we are carrying out feasibility studies evaluating three or four locations.
And about the solar part?
One of the most important milestones we have achieved this year is the administrative authorisation for the construction of the Fuencarral Cluster, a 940 MW solar project in the north of Toledo and southeast of Madrid, consisting of three sub-projects: Loeches of 260 MW, Pradillos of 390 MW and Fuencarral of 291 MW. Last year we closed the year with the sale of this project to the Swiss company Edisun Power, although all the development activity is done by us; specifically, by our Greenfield PV team in Seville. In 2024 we have also obtained the administrative authorisation to build this cluster and other solar projects and, in 2025, we hope to complete the rest.
Do you have any new alliance on the radar?
In the short term we do not plan any additional partnership. It is true that at the commercial level, both our pipeline of hydrogen-derived projects and solar projects, various options are being considered.
The costs of hydrogen production, transport and distribution remain high today. When will the situation reverse?
It is true that we have a gap between the cost at which we are able to produce and distribute hydrogen to consumers’ facilities and the price that consumers are willing to pay. But what we have to see is what will happen when the projects come into operation between 2027 and 2028. All forecasts indicate that the price of CO2 will increase, so that this gap will be reduced as the willingness to pay for offtakers grows. But, until this happens, we will need public funding. A good option is that of the European Hydrogen Bank, a ten-year production aid that will cover that period and will overcome the gap. On the other hand, we also expect that, as the scale of the projects and the production market increases, the price of electrolysers will decrease. Regarding the costs of hydrogen transport and distribution, all Smartenergy projects are developed with a strategy of proximity of the electrolyser to consumers, so that these costs are very low. There is also another important component that, although it is true that it has not been positive for the solar business, it has been positive for hydrogen, and it is the price drop that has occurred this year in the Iberian market, since approximately 60-75% of the cost of hydrogen is the cost of renewable energy that you use for its production.
What other barriers must be overcome to favor the deployment of hydrogen?
At the regulatory level, it is a must to speed up the obtaining of permits to avoid delays in projects. Water scarcity is also a problem. In Spain and Portugal we have had to make changes in the supply strategy of the projects by providing them with circularity in this resource and being able to consume part of the water from the municipal wastewater treatment plants. We are also implementing the possibility that companies that are going to consume our hydrogen can use the rejection water of the electrolyser. Another fundamental issue is the connection to the network. For some of our projects we have obtained the access and connection permission, but in others we have not. This is due to the enormous competition for the capacity of the transmission and distribution networks, where we compete with data centers, standalone battery storage or industries that want to be electrified. The lack of grid capacity is a problem for both the hydrogen and renewable business due to the limitation it imposes on the growth of electricity demand. In this sense, the holding of competitions for the ability to access the network of part of the demand should be favoured.
Could there be a competitiveness problem for the export of Spanish hydrogen if we have to compete with French nuclear hydrogen?
We do not agree that nuclear power can be used to produce renewable fuels of non-biological origin. However, what could impact us the most is the famous time-to-hour correlation of the delegated acts. The number of equivalent hours with which most hydrogen projects will be able to operate in Spain will be around 70-75% with the monthly correlation, but, when from 2030 between the hourly temporal correlation, they will drop by almost half (35-40%), and that is a very important impact on the cost of hydrogen production. For this reason, we believe that the monthly correlation should be extended at least until 2035.
Do you think Trump’s victory will harm the development of clean sources?
I don’t think there will be a sharp stop to decarbonisation programs in the US, but I am convinced that there will be a slowdown. What really worries me is the impact that the change in policy may have on the ambition of the decarbonisation plans of countries such as China, Brazil, India or South Africa, which have a much greater global polluting impact of emissions.