The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) has entered into a partnership focused on green hydrogen with Italian infrastructure outfit Snam.
The two parties will cooperate to study and potentially implement, alongside other partners, pilot projects on renewables generation, transport and distribution of green hydrogen.
The aim is to establish replicable business cases.
A signing ceremony for the partnership was held in the presence of Roberto Cingolani, Italy’s minister for the ecologic transition, and the agreement was signed by Marco Alvera, CEO of Snam and Francesco La Camera, director-general of IRENA, during the “The H2 Road to Net Zero” conference organised in Milan by Bloomberg.
Alvera said: “Within this framework agreement, Snam will contribute by leveraging on its expertise and best practices in transporting energy across its over 40,000 km of pipelines as well as on its role as member the Green Hydrogen Catapult initiative, aimed at accelerating the scale of green hydrogen 50-fold in the next five years.”
La Camera added: “Snam and IRENA share the vision for the delivery of green hydrogen as a key enabler for deeper decarbonisation.”
As a key pillar towards net-zero, IRENA’s World Energy Transitions Outlook estimates that hydrogen could provide almost 12% of global energy demand by 2050, two-thirds being green.
Under the new cooperation, Snam and IRENA will encourage public-private partnerships to accelerate hydrogen demand on industrial scale and will promote research and development initiatives to bring down costs as well as support technology developments.
The partnership will leverage on Snam’s expertise as a network infrastructure operator, further boosted by its equity interests held in the Italian company Industrie De Nora and the British electrolyser outfit ITM Power.
The partnership will also be strengthened by Snam’s role and contribution to the Green Hydrogen Catapult initiative.