Several of North Germany’s largest industrial companies have partnered together in a $1.5bn project which aims to integrate hydrogen into the northwest German coastline.
Dubbed Clean Hydrogen Coastline, the partners want to integrate a capacity of up to 400MW for electrolysis with corresponding storage for hydrogen to be added to the energy network by 2026.
The project contains companies from across the German hydrogen network chain meaning each will have its own responsibilities ensuring that the hydrogen is successfully incorporated into the area.
EWE CEO Stefan Dohler said, “In northern Germany – the wind power region – we have the best prerequisites for integrating hydrogen as an integral part of the energy system and laying the foundation for a European hydrogen economy.”
“With the National Hydrogen Strategy, the federal government has made the importance of this energy source and raw material clear.”
“In order to be able to use hydrogen on a large scale at marketable prices, major industrial projects must now follow.”
The basis of the project is to create green hydrogen that will be exported to the rest of Europe contributing to the growing European hydrogen economy with an increased focus in industrial application.
The industrial steel capacity in Bremen, dominated by ArcelorMittal Bremen, offers a potential to decarbonise the industries in the area in addition to exhibiting how effective green hydrogen can be to the steel making industry.
Reiner Blascheck, CEO of ArcelorMittal Bremen, stated, “We started the transformation process by preparing the technology change in order to use green hydrogen in production.”
“To do this, we need a functioning supply of hydrogen at economic costs so that we can keep the Bremen steel location competitive over the long term.”
To support this, the company have outlined its plans to build an iron ore reduction plant with an electric arc furnace at its Bremen site by 2026. It is estimated that this will be used to produce 1.5 million tons of crude steel with significantly lower CO2 emissions.
In addition to this factor, the transport sector will also play a huge role in integrating hydrogen to the region with the group hoping to capitalise on the growing technological capacity of fuel cells stating the need to get fuel cell-powered vehicles on the roads as soon as possible.
This factor is supported by Patrick Hermanspann, CEO of FAUN Group, who said, “We already have extensive experience in equipping collection vehicles with fuel cell systems. A transfer to other commercial vehicles and goods transport is therefore our declared goal – for climate-neutral trucking. The task here is to create sufficient production capacity.”
As part of the Clean Hydrogen Coastline project, FAUN wants to expand their production to bring a total of 12,000 vehicles into operation by 2026.
FUAN and EWE collectively plan to support this by introducing a hydrogen filling station network across the area.
This article is reproduced at www.h2-view.com
