Uruguay short-lists nine green H2 proposals for state support

Uruguay’s ministry of industry, energy and mining has pre-selected nine proposals as part of a competition to award up to USD 10 million (EUR 9.99m) of non-refundable financing to pilot projects aimed at production and uses of green hydrogen and its derivatives.

The short-listed entities are Ingener SA, CIEMSA, Compania Sudamericana de Empresas Electricas, Mecanicas y de Obras Publicas SA, MontevideoGas, Linde Plc (NYSE:LIN), the Palos Blancos Project and Kahiros, a company that proposed three projects for forestry transportation solutions, according to the ministry’s press release.

In other projects, green hydrogen would be used for hydrogenation of vegetable oils, blending with natural gas, transport, and production of ammonia and fertilisers.

The short-list concludes the first phase of the call for proposals, led by the ministry, Uruguay’s national research and innovation agency ANII and the national technology laboratory Latu. The pre-selected group has until November 17, 2022, to submit full plans for the projects.

As announced in April, the competition requires promoters to include alkaline or PEM electrolysers of a minimum capacity of 1.5 MW in their projects. The selected submissions will receive financial support for no longer than ten years from the start of operation. The financing will be distributed by the Hydrogen Sectoral Fund launched earlier this year for the purpose of supporting research and innovations in the field of green hydrogen.

Deadline to commission the projects is set for December 2025, but more points will be granted to those that can commence operation by December 2024, according to the rules.

Uruguay’s government sees the country as capable of producing cheap green hydrogen and its derivatives and becoming a net exporter in the decade after 2030. According to the draft green hydrogen road map that was released this summer, Uruguay would seek to gradually roll out renewables and electrolysers to reach 10 GW of capacity to produce hydrogen after 2030.

(USD 1.0 = EUR 0.999)

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