Seven companies in Germany’s energy sector have formed an alliance in a bid to bring clean hydrogen from the seashore to centres of industrial consumption.
The alliance for the north-to-south corridor would focus on the country’s only deep-sea port, Wilhelmshaven, on the North Sea, where production and imports will be arranged to eventually reach users via repurposed natural gas pipelines or newly built hydrogen pipelines.
Germany aims to build 10 gigawatts of green hydrogen capacity, made from solar and wind power, by 2030.
Further, it wants to import large volumes of green hydrogen from overseas to help industries such as steelmaking or cement replace millions of tonnes of heavily carbon polluting variants.
A letter of intent from the alliance has been signed and individual roles cast.
The letter reads: “The aim of the alliance is to create a network between Wilhelmshaven as a future location for hydrogen import and production with the industrial consumption centres in North Rhine-Westphalia and Lower Saxony.”
The organisations involved in the alliance are the German arms of bp and Gasunie and Germany’s own Nowega, NWO, Salzgitter, Thyssengas, and Uniper.
Uniper and bp said they expect to hear later this year about whether applications for funding support from the European Commission for ammonia imports as a carrier substance for green hydrogen, and to produce green hydrogen from offshore wind, have been successful.
Gasunie and Thyssengas also have applied for some EU funding for a planned 400 kilometre hydrogen link from Wilhelmshaven to the chemical industry region around Cologne by 2028.
NWO and Nowega will contribute parts of existing oil and gas pipeline grids.
The Salzgitter group has laid foundations for transforming its main site to hydrogen-based steel project under the project name SALCOS, for which it received €1bn of German government earlier this month.
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