The Department of Territory of the Generalitat of Catalonia has promoted the AERO H2UB project with which it foresees that the Lleida-Alguaire airport will lead the promotion of hydrogen as a fuel for mobility and airport management in Europe.
With an estimated budget of four million euros financed by Aeroports de Catalunya and Next Generation European funds, the project plans to expand the power of the facility's photovoltaic park, as well as install an electrolyzer and a hydroline station.
In this way, the equipment will become a laboratory for new aeronautical initiatives based on energy fuels and will be a test bed for the development of engines and hydrogen cells for vehicles and drones.
The Lleida-Alguaire airport will produce green hydrogen from the energy of its photovoltaic park, which will increase its power from the current 0.3 megawatt hours to 2.5. This fact will allow the equipment to be self-sufficient by 2025 and to produce about 50 tons of green hydrogen annually.
In turn, it will generate savings of 12 tons of carbon dioxide per year. The project also includes the installation of an electrolyzer, to be able to transform the energy, and a hydroline to supply hydrogen.
Specifically, the planned investment is 3.2 million euros, of which 1.8 come from European Next Generation funds and the rest is borne by Airports of Catalonia and the State. The works to make the reference green energy hub in Europe a reality will begin in the coming weeks with the expectation that energy production will begin next summer to attract aeronautical and aerospace projects to develop solutions based on electric, hydrogen and hydrogen engines. synthetic fuels.
The partners in the application of hydrogen in land vehicles and drones will be EVARM, a benchmark company in alternative fuels such as hydrogen, and Aldoratech, which works on industrial applications for drones. The project also has the collaboration of the Polytechnic University of Catalonia and the Rovira i Virgili University.
Likewise, later phases of the project plan to produce synthetic fuels from waste, biomass and carbon dioxide, thus completing the set of sustainable fuels to become a green energy hub.
The Minister of Territori, Ester Capella, has valued the project as a "strategic investment" that "deepens sustainability and decarbonization" and that will place the Lleida-Alguaire airport as a reference in the promotion of hydrogen in aviation. "It brings us closer to the future and we walk through that energy transition," she said.
In this sense, Capella referred to the facility as a "pole of economic activity, research and training" and stressed that work is being done to maximize "the opportunities it generates in the territory."
During her visit to the Lleida-Alguaire airport, the minister visited the facilities of the two training schools established in the equipment and works of the new Espai Campus, the new area for the promotion of training activities and innovation in the aeronautical and aerospace.
These are two buildings that in the coming days will be occupied by the Lithuanian BAA pilot training school and by the company Compost Segrià, which will develop a project with the i2.cat foundation linked to the New Space. Given the demand for spaces, Aeroports de Catalunya is considering the construction of a third building.
