The Italian Embassy in Vienna, in collaboration with the Permanent Mission to the United Nations in Vienna, hosted yesterday at Metternich Palace an event co-organised with the World Energy Council (WEC) Austria, entitled Bridging Continents with Green Energy: North Africa’s Hydrogen Route to Europe.
The event, which was attended by a large audience of experts in the field, is part of a series of Energy Talks organised periodically by the WEC Austria (represented for the occasion by Vice-President Berislav Gaso) in collaboration with various diplomatic offices.
Yesterday’s meeting is thematically linked to the important ministerial meeting and business forum “Southern Hydrogen Corridor – SoutH2”, hosted on 21 January in Rome at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, in the presence of the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Tajani, by the Minister of the Environment and Energy Security Pichetto Fratin and representatives of Austria, Germany, Algeria, Tunisia, the European Commission and Switzerland (as observer).
Renewable energy projects were at the centre of the discussion hosted at the Metternich Palace, with a particular focus on hydrogen and its transport, including through special plans for the redevelopment of part of the existing energy infrastructure.
Ambassador Pugliese, in his welcome greeting and recalling his experience as Ambassador of Italy to Algeria, emphasised “the enormous potential that, also with a view to implementing the Mattei Plan for Africa, the countries of that continent possess in terms of the possible production of zero-emission energy” but, at the same time, “the importance of combining this ambitious objective with the countless variables that characterise the energy market and which must therefore be carefully assessed in their technological, economic and geopolitical implications. The corridor will strengthen our country’s energy-transition interconnections with Austria, already significant today in terms of energy security through the SNAM-TAG pipeline, which, thanks to adjustments, can be used in the future for the passage of hydrogen”.
The complexity of this urgent strategic issue has been addressed by a panel of experts from both Austria and Italy. Speakers in the discussion, moderated by Gerhard Gamperl of WEC Austria: The Managing Director of Trans Austria Gas (TAG/SNAM), Daniele Gamba, who illustrated the project related to the SoutH2 Corridor, an infrastructure for the transport of hydrogen from North Africa to Europe; Petra Schwager, Chief Climate and Technology Partnerships Division of UNIDO (United Nations Industrial Development Organization, based in Vienna) who focused her intervention on the dynamics and potential of the Maghreb in the Green Energy sector; Michael Woltran, Managing Director of AGGM (Austrian Gas Grid Management), who spelled out the roadmap dedicated to hydrogen transport in Austria, and Ilaria Conti, Coordinator for Strategy & Development of the Florence School of Regulation, who elaborated on the regulatory and policy aspects to be promoted for the efficiency of this energy supply chain.