Green hydrogen plant in Cerignola, construction starts by the end of the year

he work will begin by the end of the year for the 200-tonne per year renewable green hydrogen plant planned in the disused industrial area of the former port of Cerignola, Capitanata, by Cerichem Biopharm of the Caiaffa group. The company is the recipient of non-repayable Pnrr resources, amounting to 9.86 million, as part of the regional Hydrogen Valley tender.

Having checked the landscape and environmental constraints, the company has submitted a request for a simplified authorisation procedure (Pass) to the Cerignola municipality for the construction of the photovoltaic plant, which, in turn, will feed the actual green hydrogen production plant, and 'by the end of the year,' explains Pio Cianci, Cerichem's financial director, 'we will start work. The simplified procedure should remain so, and therefore the responsibility of the municipality - the conditional is obligatory because in-depth investigations are underway with the regional offices - even for the construction of the hydrogen plant because the region intervenes with its own act of authorisation only for Enel Produzione, the first of the four companies included in the Hydrogen Valley ranking list (approved in March 2023) and assignees of the 40 million available, out of the total 149 million of all 17 positively selected candidates.

The EUR 40 million are non-repayable resources allocated to Apulia within the framework of the NRP's Mission 2 'Green Revolution and Ecological Transition'-Investment 3.1 'Production in disused industrial areas'. Together with Cerichem for 9.86 million, the other companies receiving the 40 million available are Enel with subsidies of 9.8 million, Solarind of Lecce for 10 million for plants in Taranto and San Pietro Vernotico, and Ce.Ri.Sma. srl, also for 10 million, in Campi Salentina (Lecce). The ranking of the 17 positively selected was published in April 2023, out of the 26 applications received in February 2023, a national record that saw Puglia surpass even Lombardy.

The hydrogen plant to be built by Enel Produzione on the premises of the Brindisi-Cerano thermoelectric power station will be powered by a wind farm and another photovoltaic plant. For the latter, the expropriation of the areas needed to connect it to the grid, areas that are not owned by Enel, needs to be carried out, and the region is responsible for this. For the companies eligible for financing, time is obviously running out, as June 2026, the deadline set by the NRP, is fast approaching. A deadline that applies to both the four companies financed from the outset and the two that are being added thanks to the economies accrued, for this Pnrr measure, and assigned to Puglia by the Ministry for the Environment and Energy Security (Mase). Thus Panita srl for a plant in Statte, in the Taranto area, has gone from 340 thousand in subsidies to 10 million, and the same should happen - but it is not yet official because the assignment decree is missing - for Gas Energy srl Gruppo Hope, for 6.880 million. Along with the news of this sliding of the ranking list, there is another linked inseparably to the fate of the Development and Cohesion Fund (Fsc).

For the other 11 companies admitted but not financed due to a lack of funds, a window of equal financing could open or close. In fact, the region has submitted to the central government, among other proposals, that of including in the cohesion agreement the financing, up to EUR 100 million, of all the other companies on the list, in addition to the first five (the sixth is just waiting for the decree). "Gianna Elisa Berlingerio, director of the Puglia Region's Economic Development department, says, 'We have asked the government mission structure that is in charge of this, for resources from the Fsc for about 100 million, precisely so that we can make the list run for all the other companies that are eligible but not financed due to insufficient funds. We just have to wait for the response, which should arrive soon.