Argentine Committee of the World Energy Council
The Argentine Committee of the World Energy Council, commonly known as “CACME”, is the link between the World Energy Council (WEC) and the people and organizations involved in the energy sector in our country.
WEC work covers all types of energy and contributes the insights energy leaders need to make effective strategic decisions as well as the ones related to policies and business for the energy transition, providing reliable data, tools and recommendations.
For some time now, the WEC has focused on “Humanizing the Energy Transition” and proposes to address the socioeconomic challenges posed to us by the current world, through the diversification of the energy matrix, considering the inclusion of people, new uses, behaviours and skills. It is based on a new disruptive innovation model on the demand side, including people and policies with a focus on energy affordability, reliability and equity.
The mission as a national committee is to support WEC initiatives and promote them at a local level. contributing to the energy issues discussion with the input of national and international specialists.
In CACME, they are convinced that the generation and strengthening of capacities is a key tool to humanize the energy transition. That is why they carry out the Energy Leaders Training Programme so as to promote a comprehensive view of the energy sector, including technical, economic, political, regulatory, social and environmental aspects. They also provide the participants with the tools to assess, give opinion and decide over energy issues, playing in this way the central role in this transition we are all part of.
CACME also is engaged in different initiatives at a national level, like the “Energy Scenarios”- in their different versions 2030,2035 and 2040- the “Roadmap towards a shared vision of the Argentine energy transition to 2050”, and recently, the “H2 Argentine Platform” of which they are one of the founding institutions.
The H2 Argentine Platform
The H2 Argentine Platform was formed at the end of 2020 and is made up of: Globe Legislators (coalition of legislators), CACME (Argentine Committee of the World Energy Council), CEARE (Study Center of the Energy Regulatory Activity -UBA), AAEE (Argentine Wind Energy Association), AAH (Argentine Hydrogen Association) and UTN Buenos Aires.
During 2021, membership will be expanded so as to have the participation of the corporative sector and other public entities.
The H2 Argentine Platform aims at promoting the development of green hydrogen (or of renewable origin) in Argentina.
From this place, the platform believes that hydrogen, considered an energy vector as well as used as an industrial input, plays a key role in the process of decarbonization and energy transition.
This process must be undertaken for the benefit of the present and future generations, apart from being a global imperative within the framework of Paris Agreement about climate change.
They believe it extremely important for Argentina to start being part of the H2 development in Latin America region, then, work at both local and regional level and in public as well as private institutional fields, helping guide public policy decisions on green H2 in Argentina.
The Platform promotes the articulation among public, private and civil society actors. It also encourages the corporate sectors, and the industrial, trade unions, academic fields as well as technicians and scientists to become part of this discussion about the public policy to follow as for green H2 for Argentina, generating activities to promote the spreading, training and raising of awareness of the role of green H2 in the process of global, regional and national energy transition.
Argentina’s position in terms of Hydrogen
Argentina has a current legal regime through the National Law No 26,123 that was enacted in 2006, but was never regulated and is also about to expire by the end of this year. On the other hand, this law does not make any distinction of the “green” hydrogen that is precisely where we should concentrate our promotion efforts. There is a project submitted by the Congressman Gustavo Manna to move on to the amendment to the law with the focus on the green hydrogen promotion.
One of the activities carried out from the Platform is a public consultation about the bill to the different stakeholders like the private sector, the civil society and the academy field. Its goal is to contribute to the parliamentary discussion and achieve a promotion regime that includes the perspectives of the different parties involved and guarantees the basic consensus necessary to drive this issue forward as a state policy.
On the other hand, on May 17, the “Forum towards a National Strategy of Hydrogen 2030” was held by the National Social and Economic Council, with the participation of officials of the executive branch of government, national legislators, researchers, members of organizations of the scientific system, company representatives, the ambassadors of Germany, Japan and South Korea as well as international experts.
During the closing of the Forum, President Alberto Fernández stressed that hydrogen economy “is an issue with a vast economic and environmental potential for our country. A medium and long- term policy is being defined here. And that is why it is so important that, from now on and within the framework of the Social and Economic Council, the studies, the proposals, the opinions as well as the national and the international initiatives are developed, so that in the next semester, our country will be able to submit a national strategy of Hydrogen 2030, after reaching consensus”.
Although the president’s words are promising, we must also point out that the development of green hydrogen demands a decisive and constant action and an adequate framework as well, in terms of regulations, institution and promotion of investments for the creation of a competitive market. It is worth noting that it is not only necessary to have promotion incentives to allow the issue to be launched but also it is essential to have clear market rules to be respected and remained unchanged over time so as to guarantee the development over the medium and long term.
Finally, the green hydrogen production begins with the generation of electricity from renewable sources. As regards this issue our country made significant progress between the years 2016 and 2019, going from less than 1 % to more than 8 % of non-conventional renewables in the electricity matrix. However, the RenovAr Programme tenders have been cancelled without any evidence of continuity in the short term.
It is unlikely to be able to develop the green hydrogen without more renewable energy. It is expected that in a short time there will be clear and concrete signals to show that initiatives in the field of renewables are restarting, while progress is being made in the elaboration of a roadmap for the development of green hydrogen in Argentina.
The H2 Argentina Platform affirms that it will be present to accompany the process.
