Spain’s second-largest oil company will start work on part of the Andalusian Green Hydrogen Valley scheme, which will install enough electrolysers to turn 2GW of wind and solar energy into 300,000 tonnes of renewable hydrogen a year by 2030.

The 400MW first phase will be built in Huelva, a town on the Mediterranean coast about 40km west of Seville. Work is due to begin in the summer.

The Huelva plant will start up in 2026 and reach full capacity in 2028.

Subsequent phases will also be built in San Roque, near Gibraltar. Here, the plant will be operational in 2027.

The project is being led by Moeve (formerly Cepsa) in association with Portuguese utility EDP, Spanish fertiliser producer Fertiberia, UK green methanol specialist C2X, Norwegian chemical producer Yara International and Spanish energy company Enagas.

Moeve commented on its website: “Generating the renewable energy needed for these plants will be possible thanks to the development of wind and solar projects. In addition, we will work alongside other renewable energy producers in Andalusia and the rest of Spain to promote integrating our plants into the electrical system.”

The project was helped by a decision of the Cortes, Spain’s parliament, not to impose a windfall tax on green energy producers. The tax was imposed in late 2022, and had led Moeve to reconsider its €3bn investment in the facility.

Maarten Wetselaar, Moeve’s chief executive, said he expected the projects to create 10,000 jobs over the three-year construction period.

The company is owned by the Abu Dhabi fund Mubadala and US investor Carlyle Group. It plans to invest up to €8bn in technologies that support a shift away from fossil fuels, including biofuels and electric mobility solutions.