The official kick-off meeting of the SEAFUEL project was held in Galway, Ireland, on January 25th and 26th 2018.

With a total budget of 3,497,632,98€ and for 3 years, the SEAFUEL projects aims to use the renewable resources across the Atlantic Area to power the local transport fleet and support the shift towards a low-carbon economy. The project will use the expertise and infrastructure of the partners in renewable energy, namely solar, wind and marine, to demonstrate the viability of hydrogen as a fuel to be used by the local transport authorities.

Among the first activities of the project was the celebration of the first transnational meeting of partners that took place on January 25th and 26th at the facilities of the National University of Ireland (NUI Galway), which leads the project. Since the beginning of the project in December 2017, the kick-off meeting provided the perfect opportunity for all partners to review the project objectives and the work plan, with a short overview on each project activity foreseen in phase 1. Furthermore, on January 26th a session was held with external experts from the Big Hit and GenComm projects, the second one funded by INTERREG NWE, with the intention of establishing communication bridges with other complementary hydrogen projects from the beginning of the project.

The aim of SEAFUEL is to demonstrate the feasibility to power local transportation networks using fuels produced by renewable energies and seawater, with no net carbon footprint as promoted by the resource-efficient flagship initiative COM(2010)2020. It will cover technical innovation by a demonstration plant, a framework for policy implementation and a sustainability analysis of production, distribution and usage of hydrogen as an alternative fuel in remote Atlantic regions. SEAFUEL proposes a sustainable way to power local transportation in isolated regions using renewable resources such as sun, wind and seawater.

SEAFUEL will focus on enhancing the green growth and blue economy and paving the grounds for common renewable energy policies to promote clean and sustainable transport systems. Isolated areas such as islands face the specific challenge of the high cost of electricity and fuel and their dependency on mainland infrastructures. SEAFUEL will target these regions where 30% of fuel consumption comes from local transportation. The project will drastically reduce greenhouse emissions, PM and NO2 in line with the Clean Air programme 2008/50/EC, and provide a pathway for isolated regions to become energetically independent, leading to future installations in the other Atlantic regions. An alternative fuels model for islands will be developed to fulfil the requirements of the Partners’ Regional Innovation Strategies (RIS3) aimed at low carbon economy and efficient use of marine resources.

The SEAFUEL project is co-financed by the 2014-2020 INTERREG Atlantic Area programme (http://www.atlanticarea.eu/) that supports transnational cooperation projects in 36 Atlantic regions of five countries: France, Ireland, Portugal, Spain and the United Kingdom, contributing to the achievement of economic, social and territorial cohesion. The partners of project are: from Ireland, the National University of Ireland Galway and Comharchumann Fuinnimh Oileáin Árann Teoranta; from the United Kingdom, the University of Liverpool, Action Renewables, HyEnergy Consultancy Limited and Logan Energy; from Spain, the Institute of Technology and Renewable Energies of Tenerife and  the Tenerife Energy Agency; The Regional Agency for Energy and Environment of the Autonomous Region of Madeira (Portugal) and the European Hydrogen Association (Belgium).

10:00 h
Welcome to SEAFUEL event & Hydrogen Triple Alliance
10:30 h
Pau Farras
10:50 h
Moving towards sustainable islands
Jan Cornillie - EU Clean Islands Initiative
11:10 h
Clean islands transition linked to sustainable tourism
John Dale Beckley – Canary Green
11:30 h
Hydrogen innovation in islands
Pedro Casero - Hydrogen Europe Research
Break
Green hydrogen production from solar and seawater
11:45 h
Bill Ireland – Logan Energy
Wind to hydrogen, on-shore vs off-shore
Frank Adams - GICON
12:05 h
Marine Energy harvesting to hydrogen
Diana Raine – Smart Hydrogen Consulting
12:25 h
Panel discussion and Q&A audience
12:45 h
Lunch break – poster showcase
13:15 h
Hydrogen Island Roadmaps – The Tenerife case
Josh Williamson – HyEnergy
14:30 h
HGV mobility in islands, infrastructure deployment
Jon Bjorn Skúlason – New Icelandic Energy
14:50 h
Hydrogen Islands, opportunities and challenges
Implementation of a hydrogen project, refuelling urban buses
Andrew Morrisson - Energia
15:10 h
Hydrogen fuel cells as a reliable power supply
Santiago Díaz - Instituto Tecnológico de Canarias
15:30 h
REXH2: The on-board solution for zero-emission navigation
Fernando Szabados – EODev
15:50 h
An all-island approach, the Mallorca Case
María Jaén - Enagas
16:10 h
Panel discussion and Q&A audience
16:30 h
Room Cibeles, Cleopatra Hotel
10:10 h
Strategy for the Atlantic islands
Ismael Morán-García - Joint Secretariat INTERREG Atlantic Area
Delivering of green hydrogen for mobility, maritime and remote energy production
Marc Lavine - Sunrhyse
16:50 h
March 31
10:30 h
SEAFUEL H2 Refuelling Station presentation • ITER’s CEO: Eduardo Ballesteros • SEAFUEL coordinator: Pau Farras Visit to the pilot plant
11:30 h
Visit to other ITER’s facilities (Photovoltaics laboratory, D-ALiX, supercomputer TeideHPC - TBC)
12:30 h
Cocktail at ITER’s Visitor Centre
SEAFUEL Hydrogen Refuelling Station Launch
April 01
08:30 h
Welcome and Registration SOLAR2CHEM event
SOLAR2CHEM X SEAFUEL symposium
09:00 h
08:55 h
Opening Remarks
Prof. Gabriele Centi – University of Messina
Prof. Alexander Cowan – University of Liverpool
11:00 h
09:35 h
10:25 h
10:10 h
Prof. Adélio Mendes – University of Porto
BREAK
Prof. Sophia Haussener – École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
Dr. Fatwa F. Abdi – Helmholtz Zentrum Berlin
lunch BREAK
12:35 h
11:35 h
Dr. Luis Villalba – CTO of Sunrgyze project
Dr. Gaia Neri – Enapter
13:45 h
13:10 h
14:55 h
14:20 h
Round-table discussion, Q&A, Closing remarks
TBC
16:55 h
15:10 h
BREAK
Poster session