The state of Ceará in Brazil and Cactus Energia Verde signed a memorandum of agreement to create a green hydrogen plant in Pecém port for 5 billion euros (US$5.71 billion).
Starting in 2023, the plant will be able to produce 10,500t of green hydrogen and 5,250t of green oxygen every month.
Cactus will use 3.6GW of clean energy from renewable sources to enable production, which will be supplied by the Uruquê PV solar park, with a 2.4GW installed capacity, being built by Uruquê Energias Renováveis in Jaguaretama and Umari, and a 1.2GW offshore wind farm being deployed by BI Energia in Camocim, both in Ceará.
Lcio Bomfim, a partner at Cactus Energia Verde and the executive director of BI Participaçes em Investimentos in Brazil, said: “At Camocim, we have a 1.2GW offshore wind project that is in the environmental licensing stage. And we chose to team up with another firm, Uruquê (2.5GW), which is developing a solar energy plant in Jaguaretama, 300 kilometers from Fortaleza, to form Cactus Energia, a hydrogen and ammonia company.
Ibama is looking into Camocim, while Uruquê is scheduled to get its installation license this month. We’d have a huge advantage this way, and we’d be able to move ahead. We’ve been in talks with investment funds to come to an agreement and collaborate on a project of this size.
We’re working on the Cactus industrial plant’s license and asking for an area in the Pecém ZPE, as well as the water supply, which is one of the hydrogen project’s most critical requirements.
The Memorandum of Understanding indicates the availability of these resources for the implementation of the projects, giving us an advantage in the talks. Ammonia will be used in agriculture, for example as fertilizer, and green hydrogen will be used as a fuel. It will be mostly for export in the latter situation. In Europe, there is a lot of demand.
In addition to the undertakings that we have not yet filed to Ibama, we have the offshore wind projects of Caucauia, with 620MW, and Pedra Grande, with 624MW, in Rio Grande do Norte. We’ll have to wait and see how the government responds to the decree’s contents, which are simply fundamental instructions.”
