Important role for offshore wind in German green hydrogen plan

BP, Evonik, Nowega, OGE and RWE Generation have signed a memorandum of understanding to develop the GET H2 Nukleus project. All the companies are members of the GET H2 initiative.

The aim of the project is to convert power from renewable energy into hydrogen and use it as a carbon-free source of energy in industry and other sectors.

A spokesperson for RWE told OWJ that offshore wind “will definitively play a part in long-term green hydrogen production and in the project.”

The spokesperson said, “The aim of the project is to produce green hydrogen. The electricity the project uses will be certified by an existing guarantees of origin scheme.

“It is also important that a large-scale electrolyser of the type to be used in this project is located where it can be used to relieve grid bottlenecks. At Lingen, in Lower Saxony, we have chosen a grid node that also distributes electricity from offshore wind coming from the north. It is located on one of the three major north-south routes.”

The green hydrogen to be produced at Lingen will use a 100-MW electrolyser owned by RWE Generation. The hydrogen will then be transported to industrial customers and refineries in Lingen, Marl and Gelsenkirchen, mainly using existing gas pipelines operated by transmission system operators Nowega and OGE that will be converted for 100% hydrogen. Some will be transmitted using a new network constructed by Evonik.

“Access to the hydrogen network will be open in a non-discriminatory way to all generators, traders or consumers, as is already the case with power grids and gas networks,” said the project partners. “This will ensure rapid, reliable integration of other hydrogen projects.”

Refineries and chemical plants already use large quantities of hydrogen in production processes and will significantly reduce their carbon emissions by switching over to green hydrogen.

Building up hydrogen infrastructure based on the existing gas infrastructure will guarantee security of supply for customers.

The project partners said production of green hydrogen and supply to customers is expected to start by the end of 2022, “provided that this is economically viable and the political conditions are right.”