Enagás Emprende takes a stake in Galician hydrogen plant software start-up digHy

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Before anyone builds a renewable hydrogen plant, someone has to work out where to put it, how big to make it and what its output will cost. digHy, a start-up based in Pontevedra, sells software for that stage, for hydrogen and for derivatives such as methanol, e-methane, ammonia and SAF. Enagás Emprende, the corporate venture capital arm of Enagás, has now become a shareholder. The amount was not disclosed. digHy will spend the money on more technical staff, to develop its design tool and a new module for running and certifying plants.

The platform combines site selection, using solar and wind maps modelled hour by hour, with sizing, simulation of a plant across its whole working life, design optimisation and automatically generated technical documentation. Every data point and result can be traced, which matters when a project goes looking for financing, grants, auditors or a buyer. The planned operations module is meant to tune how a plant runs and to automate sustainability certification for each molecule produced. That certification decides whether the output counts towards European regulatory targets, and Spain is still settling how it will be granted. Clients already include Spanish and international companies. Co-founder and CEO Brais Armiño says developers today commit to a plant while ignoring about half the variables that will decide its returns: "Doing it well required tools that didn't exist. That is what we have built."

Beyond the capital, the two will work together on the platform's technical and commercial development. Enagás Emprende counts renewable gases, hydrogen above all, among its main areas, and says digHy is the 20th company it has created or invested in since 2015. A separate tally has it investing €125 million in 19 companies and nine intrapreneurship projects since 2016, incubating 23 start-ups at its Energy Venture Center, and helping set up two energy transition funds: Klima Energy Transition Fund, with Alantra, and Hy24.