Seville, October 27, 2005. The first International Workshop on Renewable Hydrogen organized by the European Commission in conjunction with the Focus-Abengoa Foundation and Hynergreen, under the sponsorship of the International Partnership for the Hydrogen Economy, held in the headquarters of the Focus-Abengoa Foundation, the Hospital de los Venerables, from October 24 to 26 in Seville, was brought to a close yesterday.

During the course of the last three days more than 150 experts on renewable hydrogen production have put forth their ideas and initiatives to collaborate in the pursuit of means to turn the Hydrogen Economy –the hydrogen will take the place of crude oil derivatives- into a reality in a medium term sustainable future. The objective of this encounter was to analyze the key technologies for hydrogen production from renewable energy sources. In addition, it has enabled the identification of the different synergies, shortages and research needs, and the promotion of multilateral collaboration agreements in this field.

Wiktor Raldow, head of the Renewable Energy Sources and New Technologies Unit of the European Commission’s General Directorate of Research, Yuji Ando, from the Natural Resources and Energy Agency of Japan (NREA), and Pete Devlin, from the Department of Energy of the United States, have coincided in emphasizing the “high scientific and innovative level of all the lines of research that have been proposed at this workshop. Furthermore, they stress how important the birth of multiple collaboration initiatives among different international entities and groups has been. The IPHE will undertake the coordination of these initiatives and will evaluate their progress in order to ensure that the objectives set at this International Workshop are developed in the near future”.

The extremely high level of the Workshop, and the fact that all expectations have been exceeded, has lead the Organizing Committee, of which Hynergreen is a member, to decide unanimously to hold the event again next year in Seville, and the International Scientific Community was informed of this decision at the Closing Ceremony.

During yesterday’s sessions, Hynergreen presented its new project to produce clean and renewable hydrogen (Sol-Ter-H), that produces this gas taking the water as a raw material and using thermal solar power, that has been undertaken with the collaboration of the Energy, Environment and Technology Research Center (CIEMAT) of Spain. Both bodies will be responsible for the design, construction and evaluation of a five kilowatts prototype which they estimate will obtain about a 50 percent performance.

According to Hynergreen’s general manager, Javier Brey, “in the long term, this renewable hydrogen production system (Sol-Ter-H), could be the solution to the fuel scarcity and to the need to stop the emissions of greenhouse effect gases, given that, as it is utilized to produce electricity with fuel cells, the only waste matter produced is steam.”

This line of renewable hydrogen research will be carried out from the Solar Sanlucar la Mayor Platform (PSSM), in Seville, and will cover novel solar process-related technologies. The platform will be installed in the proximities of the PS10 power plant and of the future plants that are part of the strategic plan being developed by Abengoa on the same site, until an overall 300 MW capacity is reached; the PS10 plant is Europe's largest solar electricity production plant and is the first solar tower-technology plant that will generate electricity in a stable and commercial manner. It is an eleven megawatt plant and has been designed to produce sufficient energy to supply a population of 10,000.

The objective of Hynergreen Technologies, S.A. (Hynergreen), an Abeinsa subsidiary which in turn is Abengoa’s Industrial Engineering and Construction Business Unit, is the organization and development of activities and projects related with the production of electricity utilizing different technology fuel cells, the production of hydrogen from renewable sources and its clean and efficient use. Hynergreen is currently working on introducing fuel cells in sectors such as that of transport, portable applications and stationary use. In addition, it is making a significant research and development effort in the production of renewable hydrogen from high temperature solar thermal energy, employing only water to produce the gas.

The Focus-Abengoa Foundation was established in 1982 to foment activities that would be of benefit to society as a whole. Since 1991, the year in which the Foundation was given the use of its actual headquarters, it has become a center where the arts and sciences are promoted, and in which the cultural heritage of Seville is developed.