“The rational seems to be that Portugal and Spain have periods when “renewable” energy generation exceeds demand. Hydrogen provides a means to store a recoverable fraction of that temporary local surplus.”
if that’s the case, wouldn’t it be less expensive, safer, more energy efficient, and more reliable to simply build electricity transmission lines with tried and true technology instead of converting electricity to hydrogen via electrolysis, transporting it by nearly impossible to build and dangerous hydrogen pipelines, and THEN burning the hydrogen at the delivery terminus?
That’s just the in the weeds technical details - think how much better everyone will feel!
I have not performed the trade study. I doubt they have either. But is it likely that Iberia has surplus energy at exactly the same moment that demand in Western Europe is also slack. There are probably better ways, such as pumped storage, which is used on a large scale already, but that leads to damn construction and other visible signs of the impact of “renewables”. You can bury a pipeline or keep it under water.