CORRECTED: H2Med pipeline to be finished ‘by 2030’: Macron

An underwater pipeline to bring green hydrogen from the Iberian Peninsula to the rest of Europe will be ready by 2030 and will cost some 2.5 billion euros, France and Spain said Friday.

The H2Med, a vast submarine project proposed by Spain, France and Portugal that will run between Barcelona and Marseille, will be “completed by 2030”, French President Emmanuel Macron told a joint news conference.

And it would cost around 2.5 billion euros ($2.6 billion), Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said standing beside Macron and Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa following talks in Alicante in southern Spain.

“It is going to be the first major hydrogen corridor in the European Union,” said Sanchez.

“H2Med will be operational by the end of this decade and it will be able to transport… 10 percent of the EU’s hydrogen consumption by 2030, or around two million tonnes per year.”

Their remarks came after they formally signed off on the joint project in the presence of EU Commission chief Ursula Von der Leyen on the sidelines of a regional EU summit.

At the talks, they were to outline both a roadmap and timeline for completing H2Med, which they are hoping will be partially covered by European funds.

“Today the Iberian peninsula is becoming a major European energy gateway to the world,” said Von der Leyen, who hailed the initiative, saying it had “the potential to help us build a real European hydrogen backbone”.

“We want to produce 10 million tonnes of renewable hydrogen in the European Union by 2030 and we plan to import in addition another 10 million tonnes,” she said.

The pipeline project comes as Europe struggles to reduce its dependence on Russian energy following its February invasion of Ukraine.