Through the government’s Auctions-as-a-Service (AaaS) mechanism, project Orange.Bat in Castellon was awarded €82.5m ($91m) for its 100MW electrolyser project, while eM Numancia will receive €43.9m ($48m) for its 60MW hydrogen production and e-methanol plant.

Led by Switzerland’s Smartenergy, the Orange.Bat initiative is expected to produce 12,000 tonnes per year of hydrogen for use in the ceramics industry.

Meanwhile, the 33,000 tonnes of e-methanol by Elyse Energy in Garray, Soria, is set to be used in the chemicals, timber, logistics, and marine sectors.

Issued under the AaaS programme, funding will support hydrogen production opex for 10 years. The service allows the country to pick up the EU’s ranked, but unfunded, projects and support them with national funding.

Spain plans to allocate €280-400m for the mechanism.

The selection of the two 160MW projects follows a heavily oversubscribed second EHB auction, which drew 6.3GW of bids for just 700MW of available funding.

At least 1.3GW of awarded projects later withdrew, citing regulatory uncertainty, grid connection delays and tight EU commissioning deadlines.