All Snam’s plans for Italy on hydrogen and decarbonisation
Conversation by Energia Oltre with Piero Ercoli, and executive director decarbonization unit of Snam, on the sidelines of the panel on decarbonization at OMC Med Energy 2023 underway in Ravenna
On the day dedicated to technological, industrial but also political strategies to achieve decarbonisation in the present and future , Energia Oltre interviewed Piero Ercoli, Executive Director Decarbonization Unit of Snam.
At what point is your journey on decarbonisation?
I am optimistic about the implementation of decarbonisation: we work every day and are achieving important results. For example, on CCS: in the last year and a half it has been widely included both at European level and in the Italian Pniec. We then receive broad support from industrialists, who show interest in investing in this technology. Let's talk for example about cement factories that don't have great alternatives. But also of the Emission Trading Scheme, the cost of which will rise and the free allowances will fall.
Therefore, we must work to fill the legislative gap that exists. There is a desire on the part of the government to go in this direction. With Eni, phase 1 of the Ravenna CCS project will see the light at the beginning of 2024. We will therefore talk not about what "we should do" but about what "has been done".
Ravenna is the crucial place in this process: two expressions such as CCS and hydrogen find perfect expression. But they need logistics. How can we imagine it?
We imagine a coexistence of different networks: natural gas, with an increasing quantity of biomethane, a CO2 network like here in Ravenna (which will be multihub) and a hydrogen network that leverages the existing gas one. We are Hera's partners in the Modena project, here too we are talking about concrete things. But infrastructure will be needed, logistics will be needed to transport. North Africa is a key region in this sense, taking into account that 80% of costs concern raw materials and 20% logistics.
Let's stay on hydrogen: what is Italy and Europe missing to progress?
At a European level we are very advantaged, as Italy we are in one of the main directions both for us and for Austria and Germany. We hope that the South Corridor obtains the recognition we are waiting for, from there we must work on the infrastructure that has characteristics of financial sustainability as well. From a regulatory point of view, however, we are awaiting the Gas Package and the negotiation is in the trilogue phase. Now it is up to individual states to implement the regulatory framework.
(Article published in Energia Oltre )
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/energia/snam-cattura-co2-ravenna-idrogeno/ on Thu, 26 Oct 2023 05:47:45 +0000.