On the 30th March and 1st April, several members of Action Renewable staff took an opportunity to make a visit to the south of Tenerife to visit the offices of – ITER; Instituto Tecnológico y de Energías Renovables. The purpose of this visit was to attend an event, held in Playa de Las Americas on the Wednesday, followed by a trip to ITER to see the SEAFUEL project’s Hydrogen re-fueling station that has been installed on the premises.
The SEAFUEL project is a multi-year INTERREG Atlantic Area funded project that seeks to investigate the feasibility of powering local transportation networks using fuels produced by renewable energies and seawater, with no net carbon footprint. Action Renewables is a project partner responsible for capitalization aspects of the project producing a range of case studies and developing a tool kit to help other organisations learn from the SEAFUEL experience.
On the Wednesday, a series of fantastic speakers were on hand – in person and online – covering a range of topics linked to renewable hydrogen, from Hydrogen Innovation in Islands, presented by Pedro Casero of Hydrogen Europe Research via Wind to hydrogen, on-shore vs off-shore as presented by Frank Adam of GICON Gruppe to HGV mobility in islands, infrastructure deployment discussed by Jon Bjorn Skúlason of New Icelandic Energy, plus many more. The event offered the opportunity for Action Renewables staff to rekindle old relationships with organisations from across Europe that had been put on hold due to the pandemic and begin to strike up new relationships and develop new networks in this key area.
On the second day of the trip the group, along with the other attendees from around Europe decamped to the site of ITER where the SEAFUEL H2 refuelling station was on show. After some introductory speeches, everyone took the opportunity to investigate the various parts of the installation, which was opened up for inquisitive attendees to have a look inside. This opportunity to see a tangible, physical output was particularly useful in helping to shape the thoughts of those in attendance who had perhaps previously only seen such installations in a virtual world.
Renewable Hydrogen is an area that is developing rapidly and there is a huge amount of activity and innovation and Action Renewables attendance at this event, alongside participation in the SEAFUEL and other Hydrogen projects helps to keep us at the sharp end, driving this area of work forward.