Vattenfall has secured £9.3m in innovation funding to develop what is claimed to be the world’s first hydrogen-producing offshore wind turbine.
The money from the UK government’s Net Zero Innovation Portfolio Low Carbon Hydrogen Supply 2 fund will be used for a pilot project at Vattenfall’s Offshore Wind Farm in Aberdeen Bay.
The electrolyser to produce the hydrogen will be sited directly onto an existing operational turbine.
The pilot project will have an output of 8MW and will be able to produce enough hydrogen every day to power a hydrogen bus to travel 24,000km. The hydrogen will be piped to shore at Aberdeen Harbor.
Danielle Lane, UK country manager for Vattenfall, commented: “We are very happy with the government funding. Placing hydrogen electrolysers on offshore wind turbines is likely to be the quickest and cheapest way of providing fossil-free hydrogen at scale.”
The project – called Hydrogen Turbine 1 (HT1) – aims to be first project in the world to test the full integration of hydrogen production with an offshore wind turbine.
HT1 will also map out development and consent processes for large-scale hydrogen projects co-located with offshore wind farms to speed up future development.
Work will begin immediately with the goal of first production as early as 2025.
Image credit: Vattenfall
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