This new joint venture will launch the first private Spanish hydropower plant for public use and will use a cutting-edge fleet of hydrogen fuel cell cars.

SHiE will market generation and dispensing modules and will provide distribution services at service stations or to logistics consumers with fleets of forklifts, trucks and buses

Zaragoza, 1 December 2021. As has been made clear at recent international events, such as the COP 26 held in Glasgow, achieving the climate neutrality that the European Union intends to achieve by 2050 requires a stepping up of the actions aimed at decarbonising the economy. In this scenario of collective commitment to reducing emissions, renewable energy and energy efficiency, the hydrogen economy, will play an important role. This energy vector is capable of dealing with the stable supply of clean energy, even in areas far from distribution networks, and also allows storage and the use of surplus renewable production or the decarbonisation of sectors that are difficult to electrify, such as heavy industry or transport.

Aware of all this and with the aim of offering efficient energy systems that mitigate climate change and make the energy transition possible, two Aragonese companies with extensive experience in their respective areas of activity, Arpa Equipos Móviles de Campaña and Grupo Zoilo Ríos, have come together to launch SHiE with a clear purpose, to offer comprehensive solutions for the generation, transport, storage and dispensing of green hydrogen, produced entirely from renewable resources such as solar photovoltaic or wind energy.

SHiE, turnkey projects

SHiE will provide a simple solution to the need to carry out decarbonisation with an approach based on the simplest, lightest and most common element on the planet, which can also be obtained in a completely clean way, i.e. renewable hydrogen. Specifically, SHiE will develop projects tailored to the needs of the client in any of the hydrogen phases:

- Production. Generation of 100% green hydrogen from renewable energies, which makes it possible to take advantage of surplus photovoltaic or wind energy production at the facilities and optimise the energy mix.

– Compression. Compression modules from 60 to 900 bar coupled to hydrogen production to minimise the necessary storage volume and optimise the installation's energy expenditure.

- Storage. Storage systems in different formats and with different capacities, which are the perfect complement to renewable resources, inexhaustible, but not always available. The hydrogen obtained from them with an electrolysis process can be stored for a long time to subsequently generate electricity on demand through fuel cells, thus acting as an energy vector that resolves the main obstacle renewable energies had hitherto presented, i.e. the difficulty of storing them.

- Transportation. Transport equipment for the distribution of hydrogen in supply stations, companies or to homes.

– Dispensing. Dispensing systems for hydrogen fuel cell vehicles in facilities for own use or for third parties.

In addition to turnkey projects, SHiE will carry out feasibility studies, market green hydrogen generation and dispensing modules, and provide hydrogen distribution and sale services for mobility (service stations) or to logistics and transport consumers (fleets of forklifts, trucks and buses), rental of hydrogen generators and modular dispensers, maintenance and legalisation of facilities or advice on access to financing. In addition to sustainability and capillarity, the main characteristic of all these systems is their scalability: they can be easily expanded as per client needs.

The collaboration between two companies committed to sustainability and social benefit is what gave rise to SHiE.

SHiE is the result of the collaboration between two companies aware of the Sustainable Development Goals that make up the United Nations 2030 Agenda, i.e. ARPA Equipos Móviles de Campaña and the Zoilo Ríos Group, who are committed to a sustainable future in their respective business strategies and to achieving the greatest social benefit.

After analysing the great potential of green hydrogen to replace polluting energy sources and ensure that the main economic sectors achieve climate neutrality, both companies decided to create this new joint venture, taking advantage of their extensive experience in the installation of mobile solutions that serve to generate and store gas, in the case of ARPA, and in the supply of clean energy for sustainable mobility in its network of service stations, in the case of Zoilo Ríos.

As a result of this union, the first private production of hydrogen will be carried out in the autonomous community -initially at the ARPA facilities in La Muela, Zaragoza- and the first Spanish hydrogen plant open to the public will be built at the El Cisne 1 service station belonging to the Zoilo Ríos Group on the A-2 motorway, in the direction of Madrid.

SHiE will also have the first fleet of hydrogen fuel cell cars in Aragón. Specifically, this will consist of two Toyota Mirai, delivered to the Toyota Artal dealer in Zaragoza. The Toyota Mirai is a fuel cell electric vehicle (FCEV) that is 100% ecological, does not produce any polluting emissions and uses hydrogen as fuel to generate electricity. It offers features and a range similar to that of any combustion car, with a refuelling time of between 3 and 5 minutes, which underlines the suitability of this technology.