Fast-growing Poland boosts construction of hydrogen industry
Poland, which has grown into an economic miracle in Eastern Europe, is also trying to take its share of the hydrogen economy. It has its own clear strengths. Finland and Poland should work to combine their strengths.
"For example, Poland has large underground salt mines where huge quantities of hydrogen can be stored cheaply and efficiently. Large coastal shipyards and ports would also be keen to pioneer the use of new marine fuels," says Tauno Kekäle, Project Manager at Merinova. Mr Kekäle attended a seminar on the hydrogen economy in Poland in March as a representative of BotH2nia.
But there are still brakes on the road. With roughly 37 million inhabitants in a country the size of Finland, it is harder to find sites for industry and wind turbines in Poland than in Finland. Although coal's share of energy use is rapidly declining, it still accounts for just over half of the country's total electricity generation and there is not enough renewable electricity to meet the large needs of the hydrogen industry. In a large country, it is also difficult to get the government to always run properly in the same direction.
The Polish government intends to make sure that the country can still compete in the hydrogen race. A few months ago, the Polish government announced the launch of a €640 million green hydrogen support programme. The government also announced that it was pushing ahead with a €2 billion hydrogen project that would create a hydrogen production facility in south-western Poland near the German border to serve transport needs in particular. At the same time, the government adopted a bill defining the status of low-carbon hydrogen in Polish legislation and transposing EU hydrogen rules into Polish law.
The Baltic Sea hydrogen gas pipeline is considered to be of great interest in Poland.
"Poles are interested in cooperation between Finland and Sweden to produce emission-free hydrogen and store it underground in Poland. It is useful to understand the differences between the regions around the Baltic Sea in terms of hydrogen production and how they can complement each other. The difficulty of storing hydrogen is one of Finland's challenges," says Kekäle.
The hydrogen event in Gdynia in northern Poland was attended by a couple of hundred participants - hydrogen technology developers, regional developers, financiers, port people, municipalities. Although the participants were mainly Polish, there were also some Nordic participants interested in the Polish market.
