Italy revives energy hub ambitions via North Africa hydrogen corridor

Hydrogen imports from Africa could offer Italy opportunity to develop into a southern Europe energy hub, a goal it already pursued for natural gas

Italy is betting on green hydrogen imports from North Africa to revamp its plans to become southern Europe’s energy hub, after leaders of Italy, Germany and Austria signed a Joint Declaration of Intent at the end of May to develop a hydrogen corridor between the three countries. The SoutH2 Corridor, a development already included in the EU’s Projects of Common Interest list, aims to bring low-cost renewable hydrogen from North Africa to hard-to-abate demand clusters in Italy, Austria and Germany. The project —led by transmission system operators Snam, TAG, GCA and Bayernets—forms part of the European Hydrogen Backbone and has a capacity of 4mt/yr According to its developers, it could deliver