This week the Power-to-X story ran in two directions at once. In Bern, the Federal Council decided that the Swiss hydrogen market is too uncertain to justify a state guarantee for the country’s future connection to Europe’s hydrogen backbone. Meanwhile in Chile, Spain, Sweden and Germany, the projects that do have a demand case kept moving: an $11 billion ammonia export complex cleared its environmental review, Europe’s largest electrolyser plant placed its cooling order, and Uniper advanced both a 115,000-tonne e-methanol plant and an ammonia import terminal. Here is our review of the week of 31 August to 7 September.
Switzerland: no state guarantee for the hydrogen pipeline — for now
On 2 September the Federal Council decided not to provide financial backing for the planned conversion of the Transitgas pipeline to hydrogen. The decision rests on a review report commissioned under the 2024 national hydrogen strategy, which asked whether the Confederation should underwrite the project with a state guarantee. The answer, for now, is no: the development of the Swiss hydrogen market is judged too uncertain, there are no sufficiently robust analyses of future domestic demand, and the current legal framework offers no basis for federal co-financing — new legislation would be needed first. SPIN will follow up on this through its network of politicians in the Federal Parliament, working towards the legal basis such a guarantee would require. The industry and the owners of Transitgas AG are expected to develop a financing solution themselves, though the Federal Council explicitly leaves the door open to a later reassessment. For Swiss Power-to-X the message is double-edged. The pipeline through the Alps is the physical link between a future domestic hydrogen market and the European core network — without it, Switzerland’s import option narrows considerably. But the government’s reasoning also points to what is missing: bankable demand. As long as no Swiss industrial offtakers commit to volumes, the case for public risk-sharing will remain hard to make. (Source: Netzbetreiberinfo.ch)
Chile approves an $11 billion green ammonia export project
While Australia’s Pilbara hub dropped hydrogen from its plans a week ago, Chile’s Magallanes region went the other way. The regional Environmental Assessment Commission unanimously approved HNH Energy’s green ammonia megaproject, reported on 1 September: 1.7 GW of onshore wind feeding 1.5 GW of electrolysers, around 270,000 tonnes of green hydrogen a year converted into roughly 1.35 million tonnes of ammonia for export, plus port, storage and seawater desalination infrastructure. Construction is scheduled to start in 2027 with commercial operation towards the end of 2030, at a total investment of around $11 billion. Environmental approval is not a final investment decision, and the offtake question that sank the Pilbara project applies here too. But the Magallanes wind resource is among the best in the world, and Chile has now cleared its first export-scale Power-to-Ammonia complex through permitting. (Sources: Fuel Cells Works, Renewables Now, energynews.pro)
Uniper doubles down on molecules: e-methanol in Sweden, ammonia imports in Wilhelmshaven
Two announcements from Uniper this week show a large European utility still committing development capital to Power-to-X. On 1 September Topsoe announced it has been awarded the front-end engineering design for Uniper’s NorthStarH2 e-methanol project in Östersund, northern Sweden, based on its modular ModuLite technology. The plant is designed for around 115,000 tonnes of e-methanol a year for shipping and the chemical industry, with a final investment decision expected in 2028 and commissioning targeted for 2031. Three days later, on 4 September, Uniper reported that it had completed the first phase of its open season for the planned hydrogen import terminal in Wilhelmshaven, securing sufficient capacity reservations to proceed. The modular terminal could ultimately handle 2.6 million tonnes of ammonia a year, equivalent to around 350,000 tonnes of hydrogen. Phase 2 now moves to heads of terms and a terminal use agreement. Taken together: one project makes molecules from Nordic power, the other lands them on the German coast — a reminder that the European hydrogen economy will be built on both domestic production and imports. (Sources: Topsoe, Hydrocarbon Engineering, EuropaWire, pv magazine)
Spain: Onuba H2 orders its cooling, Valencia funds bp’s Castellón plant
Spain provided this week’s evidence that projects past FID keep spending. On 2 September Alfa Laval announced it has been selected to supply the electrolyser, gas and balance-of-plant cooling — 60 heat exchangers in total — for Moeve’s Onuba H2 project in Huelva, the anchor of the Andalusian Green Hydrogen Valley. With an initial 300 MW of electrolysis, expandable by a further 105 MW, and around 45,000 tonnes of green hydrogen a year, Onuba is set to become the largest electrolyser plant in southern Europe. Further up the coast, the Valencian regional government approved on 3 September €76 million in direct grants from EU regional funds: €66.3 million for Castellón Green Hydrogen Phase 2, the bp–Iberdrola renewable hydrogen demonstration project at the Castellón refinery, and €9.7 million for bp’s advanced pretreatment technologies for sustainable fuels including SAF and HVO. The money is spread over 2026 to 2029. (Sources: Alfa Laval, Interdiario, pv magazine)
Briefly noted
- Eastern Germany plans its hydrogen distribution grid. More than 50 partners launched the «H2 Network East» study on 2 September to plan how hydrogen from the German core network will reach industrial and municipal customers across the eastern federal states. (Fuel Cells Works)
- Waste heat to hydrogen in Bielefeld. Stadtwerke Bielefeld has put a 1 MW PEM electrolyser into trial operation at the Bielefeld-Herford waste incineration plant, powered by electricity from the plant itself; around 41 tonnes of hydrogen are planned in the first year, rising to 144 tonnes, for the neighbouring hydrogen filling station. (Power-to-X.com ticker, 4 September)
- Posco and BHP test Australian ore for hydrogen steelmaking. The two companies signed a collaboration agreement to test BHP’s fine iron ores in Posco’s HyREX hydrogen direct-reduction process, which targets commercialisation by 2030 — a signal of where large future hydrogen demand may come from. (pv magazine)
- Europe is behind its own targets. A new Energy Industries Council report counts 8.46 GW of installed electrolyser capacity across Europe and 624 hydrogen projects announced since 2020 — but about half are still in feasibility, 15% are on hold and 74 have been discontinued, leaving the REPowerEU goal of 40 GW by 2030 out of reach on current trends. (Power-to-X.com ticker, 4 September)
What it means for Power-to-X
The Federal Council’s decision and the international news belong in the same frame. Bern’s reasoning — no demonstrable demand, no legal basis, no guarantee — is exactly the logic that has been thinning the global project pipeline all year. But this week also showed what passes the test: Chile’s ammonia project, Onuba, NorthStarH2 and Wilhelmshaven all have an identified customer, a defined product and, in most cases, public co-funding attached to a demand signal. Switzerland has neither killed the pipeline nor funded it; it has told the industry to bring the demand first. For SPIN members, that turns the question around: the next move is not to lobby for the pipeline, but to make the domestic offtake visible enough that the pipeline finances itself.
🤖 AI transparency: This text and its visual were created using AI, reviewed and approved by a human.
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