Creating renewable energy, hydrogen, by installing thousands of solar panels on the Egyptian plain, one of the sunniest places on the planet. This is the ambitious initiative that Hydrozero by Unicusano, IAT, and SRS will present on Monday, November 14th, at the COP 27 climate change conference. Giuseppe Cherubini, director general of IAT, and Antonio Naviglio, president of S.R.S., spoke on behalf of the study team. The project aims to exploit desert areas in Egypt to produce photovoltaic energy (10.5 MWe in the first phase, 4.5 GWe in a possible second phase configuration) with which to produce hydrogen gas (330 tons per year in the first phase, 167,000 in the second) to nourish both the existing Greenstream pipeline between Alessandria and Taranto, and a liquefaction plant. In the second case, the product will be carried to Taranto, the location of Europe's biggest steel mill and a major CO2 emitter, by tank container in the first phase and then through four gas tankers, each fitted with three 4,500 m3 spheres. Egypt will consume some of the power and hydrogen, but the majority will be pumped through the Greenstream pipeline, which connects Egypt to Italy. The hydrogen supplied by sea, on the other hand, will be accessible not only to Italy, but also to the other Central European nations, due to the identification of hubs. The 167,000 tons of hydrogen collected will be provided for 25% to Egypt and 75% to Europe, equating to 125,000 tons or 1.25% of the value claimed by REPowerEU.
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