Why Colombia is emerging as a global hydrogen leader

Mónica Gasca, the executive director of sector association Hidrógeno Colombia, speaks to BNamericas about the opportunities and challenges for hydrogen investment in the Andean country. Gasca is a speaker at the Energyear Colombia 2023 event, currently being held in Medellín. 

This is the first of a two-part interview.

BNamericas: This month the Colombian government and the German research institute Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft signed a cooperation agreement to turn the South American country into a green hydrogen export hub. What does the agreement mean for Colombia?

Gasca: We have a roadmap that was launched in October 2021 that has 60 actions that will lead us to meet some goals by 2030, some goals in production, also in demand, in demand for hydrogen both nationally and internationally, because within our roadmap we want to export from 2030.

It’s a very good sign that the [Gustavo] Petro government has continued both with the implementation of the roadmap and with the promotion of international agreements. What we have identified from the association is that the companies that are developing large-scale projects are ultimately reaching two bottlenecks.

The first is the issue of financing. For this reason, together with the mines and energy ministry, we’re working with the European Union to develop a fund for large-scale hydrogen projects, and the idea is to launch the first call before the end of this year. The other bottleneck is demand. In the end, when the project has its financing part solved, the next question is, who is going to buy this hydrogen from me? And for this, these agreements that the government is making with other countries are super good.

BNamericas: Europe can also contribute a lot in the area of R&D…

Gasca: Yes, we understand that the agreement with the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft institute is very focused on the transfer of technology and knowledge. This government launched an innovation center together with [state oil company] Ecopetrol which is now migrating to be our national energy company in the Caribbean in the city of Cartagena. So what we see is that it’s very positive that we have this agreement because it can both help to reindustrialize Colombia by bringing this new technology and this new knowledge, as well as getting a little closer to these [countries] that in the end are going to be the ones demanding the green hydrogen that we can produce.

BNamericas: They have the technology and Colombia has the resources, both with the wind and the sun, especially in the Caribbean, which is the envy of many countries in Europe and the world, right?

Gasca: Yes, and we also have the land available because we have the entire northern part of the country in the Caribbean. We have incredible potential in solar and wind power but above all in the department of La Guajira, a department that has wind power plant factors of almost 70% and we have a lot of land for the deployment of projects, also in terms of [offshore] which is a little more in the future because we’re waiting for prices to drop, we have a production potential of 50 additional GW throughout the Colombian Caribbean, so there is a very great possibility of developing this hydrogen. In addition, Colombia is among the 10 countries that have the most water in the world, so we also have that necessary resource for green hydrogen.

BNamericas: In its hydrogen roadmap, published in 2021, the government set goals such as reaching 3GW of electrolysis capacity by 2030 and investments of between US$2.5bn and US$5.5bn during the same period. Colombia continues with the same goals?

Gasca: The goals remain the same and we believe that we will meet them. Just with the projects that are being carried out and the plan that Ecopetrol has, we believe that a large part of that goal can be achieved. There are other companies within the association, for example Total Eren and EDF, that are working on the development of this type of project, so we’ll very surely meet the goal of 1-3GW of installed electrolysis by 2030.

We have goals in terms of demand, especially in the transportation sector, that are a little more challenging. Colombia wants to have almost 3,500 light and heavy fuel cell vehicles by 2030 and also between 50 and 100 hydrogen plants throughout the country to have the recharging infrastructure.

We see this goal as quite ambitious since Colombia is a country that has been developing the electric mobility market for almost 10 years. We’re doing very well, although the figures are quite challenging. Bringing new mobility technologies has, let's say, its natural process of technology adoption and we see that to meet this goal we really have to develop quite specific regulations. We believe that these four years of government are key to being able to develop it and reach 2030 with that goal achieved because we still have seven years to go.

BNamericas: Yes, time goes by very quickly. I wanted to ask you about the demand that, apart from transportation, includes the industrial sector, such as petrochemicals and fertilizers. Are these the main pillars of demand?

Gasca: Yes. I believe that among the fundamental pillars are refineries first. Colombia has two refineries and Ecopetrol, which is the owner of these refineries, has quite ambitious decarbonization plans, where hydrogen is one of the central elements. Then there's fertilizers. Colombia has two companies that handle almost the entire fertilizer market [Yara and Monómeros].

They are both very interested in the issue of producing green hydrogen to make their green ammonia, which they use in the production of fertilizers. The issue of transportation has moved a lot, we see it because transportation is a good application to learn how to handle this hydrogen. Of the five pilots we have in the country, three are mobility. We have one from Toyota in Cartagena, which is doing mobility tests at this altitude, well, at sea level. We have a 50-passenger bus in Bogotá, almost 3,000m above sea level, which is also testing how hydrogen would work in passenger transport. And we have a Hyundai vehicle here in the city of Medellín that is also being tested.

From the association, we always say that hydrogen can be used for everything and it is one of its advantages. It is quite versatile. But the countries would have to choose the niches in which it is efficient to use hydrogen and focus on those that we’ll soon see are good for each country.