The Chilean Minister of Energy, Diego Pardow, was in the Netherlands on 26-27 March. He came to renew the Memorandum of Understanding with the Port of Rotterdam, and to sign a Strategic Work Agenda with the Dutch Minister of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy, to advance the bilateral work being carried out. On the occasion, he visited a hydrogen refuelling station and the Port of Rotterdam facilities, as well as meeting with the main companies in the green hydrogen supply chain.
How is Chile preparing for the green hydrogen industry?
Green hydrogen has a fundamental role to play in Chile’s path towards the goal of carbon neutrality by 2050, as established in the recently approved Framework Law on Climate Change. President Gabriel Boric himself has recently reaffirmed this.
The National Green Hydrogen Strategy has aimed to position the country’s vision and aspirations regarding the development of this industry and its derivatives, highlighting the great comparative advantages that Chile has to become one of the main producers of green hydrogen worldwide.
Complementing the National Strategy, we have initiated a Green Hydrogen Action Plan 2023-2030 to include a more comprehensive view, built in a participatory manner and thus promoting the development of a sustainable industry that enables more complex and diverse local economies.
What do you expect from this green hydrogen roadshow?
We want to invite European developers to invest in the green hydrogen industry in Chile. In our country we are working together with the industry to understand the needs for its proper development and from the government we want to become a facilitator to match them with the expectations of the people in the communities involved. Currently, we are generating regulation in key sectors for the industry such as safety, quality and certification. In addition, we are preparing the environmental assessment of projects as we are generating training in the State so that the assessors are properly trained and we are also creating assessment guidelines to guide these processes in a good way.
Our commitment is to do everything in our power to implement public policies that will allow Chile to become a world leader in the production of this clean fuel. Chile needs the world and the world needs Chile.
What are the strategic partners (countries) for this issue?
From Chile we are working with different countries in Europe, Asia and America to generate cooperation agreements and attract investment that will allow us to become one of the world’s leading countries in the production of Green Hydrogen. I am currently visiting Europe to advance in a series of agreements in this line and in the next weeks I will visit Japan and Korea with the same objective.
What stamp of your administration do you want to leave on green hydrogen?
I would like to lay the foundations for the development of this industry in Chile. For that to happen, we have to create a set of public policies that complement the needs of companies and communities. It is very difficult for an industry to be successful in the long term if it is not able to generate links with the communities where it is inserted, so our main hallmark must be that of facilitators to provoke this synergy.
