The first Assembly of the Basque Hydrogen Corridor Association, BH2C, took place on November 8th at the Guggenheim, with the participation of 71 companies and entities, including Nippon Gases, and was officially opened by the Regional Minister for Economic Development, Sustainability and the Environment, Arantxa Tapia, by telematic means from Glasgow.
This is yet another step towards promoting hydrogen as an energy industry and will undoubtedly play an essential role in the Basque Country and Europe in the energy transition towards climate neutrality.
The Basque Hydrogen Corridor, presented in February this year, was created with the aim of promoting the decarbonisation of strategic sectors such as energy, mobility, industry and services. The project will have an investment of more than 1,500 million euros up to 2026, and will generate more than 1,340 direct jobs and 6,700 indirect jobs.
In his speech, José Ignacio Zudaire, president of the BH2C Association, stressed that "the creation of the association demonstrates the firm commitment of companies and entities to advance in decarbonisation, and to do so, to use hydrogen as an energy vector. The energy transition will only be sustainable if, along with the challenge of decarbonisation, we are committed to maintaining the weight of industry in GDP. We must tackle a transition that allows us to develop our industry, create wealth and well-being and boost our innovation and technology. We will only continue to be an industrial country, capable of creating quality employment, if we tackle this challenge as we have always done: with specific projects, with investment, with technology and using cooperation as a strategy. The Basque Hydrogen Corridor has all these ingredients, which is why I have no doubt that it is a project with and for the future. There is no doubt that the Basque Country must make a firm commitment to being a leader in this sector, as it is in steel, machine tools, the automotive industry and renewable energies".