The Port of València will be the first port in Europe to incorporate hydrogen technologies to reduce the environmental impact of its terminal machinery operations.
The hydrogen plant is part of H2Ports, a project led by the Valenciaport Foundation and the Valencia Port Authority.
From January, the Port of Valencia will have a “hydrogen station” or green hydrogen supply station. The station will be mobile and will provide the necessary fuel, in the appropriate conditions and quantities to guarantee the continuous working cycles of the equipment forming part of the H2Ports project.
The first of this equipment will be the machine or prototype of the Reach Stacker vehicle or “container stacker” which will be powered by this energy and which will be tested at MSC Terminal Valencia.
The second piece of equipment to be serviced by the hydrogen plant will be a 4×4 tractor unit equipped with a fuel cell stack for testing in loading/unloading operations at Grimaldi Group’s Valencia Terminal Europa.
These are very important machines in the Port of Valencia because they are in operation 24 hours a day, 365 days a year and within our objectives and calculations of emissions, the terminal machinery represents almost 25% of the emissions that we want to reduce through this type of energy
explains the head of Ecological Transition of the APV, Federico Torres.
The hydrogen supply station (HRS) will include a fixed part that will be dedicated to receiving and storing hydrogen from an external supplier and compressing it to delivery pressure, and a mobile part that will store the compressed hydrogen and include a hydrogen dispenser for refuelling the port machinery.
The work will begin in January, so once again we will be pioneering and taking a step forward with this type of infrastructure, in our commitment to sustainability, according to the president of the PAV, Aurelio Martínez.
In addition to projects such as this one with hydrogen, – he said – we have all the environmental certifications, we monitor noise, water or air quality indexes or measured since 2008 the carbon footprint, which since then has been reduced by 30% while traffic has grown by 42%. Our commitment is obvious and the results are there
The H2Ports project will involve a total investment of 4 million euros and involves, in addition to the Valenciaport Foundation and the Valencia Port Authority, the National Hydrogen Centre and the private companies MSC Terminal Valencia, Grimaldi Group, Hyster-Yale, Atena Distretto Alta Tecnologia Energia Ambiente, Ballard Power Systems Europe and Enagás.
