Chile green hydrogen focus tightens on project implementation, engagement

Chile’s potential as a green hydrogen heavyweight is established – the key task now involves getting projects from drawing board phase to execution.

That was among the takeaways from a government event held to present a strategy committee formed to support development of the country’s 2023-30 green hydrogen roadmap, being designed to help the sector take flight. 

The roadmap will contain 23 initiatives – spanning areas including infrastructure, human resources, public environmental baseline studies, tax credits, environmental evaluation, financing and priority regulations – and is due to be completed and put out to public consultation in August. Work has already got underway in various spheres.

Commenting on the need to shift from drawing board to implementation, finance minister Mario Marcel said: “There’s no point in having [green hydrogen] as latent potential; we have to succeed in getting it to materialize. We don’t just have the competitive advantage of producing renewable energy at a low cost, but we also have the institutions, the infrastructure and the rules to do it. That’s what we’re working on.” 

The role of the State includes work in the spheres of regulations and financing support, paving the way for the private sector to lead the charge, the event was told.

“Green hydrogen is an industry that is open 100% to the private sector. Here, those that are going to materialize these projects, those that are going to carry them out are, fundamentally, the private sector, Chilean and foreign.”

Referring to the baseline studies, targeting project hub Magallanes region, Marcel said: “This is going to simplify the environmental evaluation process for specific projects; it’s going to reduce the costs for private investors and, in this way, help accelerate the advancement of this investment.”

Marcel and energy minister Diego Pardow introduced the 10-strong committee, whose members include Pardow’s immediate predecessor, Carlos Jobet, former president Michelle Bachelet and Bettina Horst von Thadden, executive director of economics think-tank Libertad y Desarrollo. Jobet was a key figure behind the country’s green hydrogen strategy, launched in 2020.

The committee’s remit includes work in the spheres of policy and guidelines and communicating, nationally and internationally, what the country is doing regarding hydrogen.

Pardow – who underscored that green hydrogen development is State policy – told BNamericas on the sidelines of the event that the principal aim of the committee is to “help us build engagement, as a country, on the one hand present ourselves internationally … and present the industry to residents of this country, in particular those in the regions that will receive this major infrastructure.”

The committee, in place until September, will hold four main sessions, with threads centering on carbon neutrality and domestic offtake, infrastructure and territorial organization, harmonization of local and national needs, and value chains.

Officials estimate that by 2050, 27% of Chilean green hydrogen production will be consumed locally, the balance exported. Currently, some 50 projects have been announced, with the bulk of the multibillion-dollar outlay planned for Magallanes and Antofagasta regions, home to world-class wind and solar resources, respectively.

A major project developer, HIF Global, recently said that much hinged on permitting processes. HIF has already built an e-fuels demonstration plant, the first of its kind in the world, in Magallanes. 

Wind farm Faro del Sur, put forward by project partner Enel Chile and part of e-fuels production ramp up plans, was pulled from the environmental evaluation system last year following a dispute. Faro del Sur is expected to be resubmitted this half. The project is one of five that have been awarded subsidy support from state development agency Corfo. The other four are planned for brownfield sites already covered by existing environmental permits. Plants are due online by end-2025. 

Engie Energía Chile, behind an Antofagasta region project to help decarbonize the explosives industry, said recently that there was interest among potential offtakers and that firms needed to sign on the dotted lines. Among the Corfo subsidy round winners, the company called for incentives for domestic demand. 

In parallel, the government is planning to submit this year a bill to overhaul sectoral permitting, a common pain point for project developers. Former finance minister Ignacio Briones said environmental permitting should also be tackled, to not only streamline but also strengthen processes. 

The 10 members of the committee (pictured) are the following: 

Michelle Bachelet, former president.
Juan Carlos Jobet, former energy and mining minister
Jorge Flies, governor of Magallanes region
Ricardo Diaz Cortés, Antofagasta region governor
Marcela Angulo, director of Universidad de Concepción in Santiago.
Hernán de Solminihac, researcher and consultant, former minister of public works
Bettina Horst von Thadden, academic at Universidad Católica and executive director of local think-tank Libertad y Desarrollo
Rosa Devés, rector of Universidad de Chile
Anahí Urquiza, academic at Universidad de Chile, researcher at climate and resilience science center CR2 and coordinator of the energy poverty network
Cristina Dorador, doctor of natural science, professor at Universidad de Antofagasta 

(An associated document outlining the 23 measures can be downloaded via the Documents box in the upper-right corner.)