Orsted will produce green hydrogen from offshore wind farms

Orsted, a partner of the PGE in offshore wind farms projects, engages on a large scale in installations for the production of "green" hydrogen. In the vision of the Danish company, in a zero-emission economy, what cannot be electrified will be driven by "green" hydrogen.

In 2020, the Danish government decided to build a cluster of offshore wind farms with a total power of 2 GW to the south-west of Bornholm within a decade. "Bornholm will serve as an energy island that will combine newly created offshore wind farm projects with transmission infrastructure," said PAP Vice President Orsted Offshore Rasmus Errboe.

As he added, in an ideal scenario these farms will be combined with Bornholm, Zelandia and Copenhagen, Poland or Germany. In Orsted's vision, the wind farm connected to Bornholm will power a large-scale installation to produce green hydrogen in the south of Copenhagen for heavy transport and aviation.

"In order to fight climate change effectively, a broad electrification of the economy will be needed, and to ensure that electricity comes from renewable energy sources as much as possible," Errboe stressed.

However, it is known that it will be very difficult to electrify certain sectors, such as heavy industry, maritime and air transport, or heavy road transport. As Errboe pointed out, where electrification is difficult, the use of "green" hydrogen may be helpful, allowing fossil fuels to be abandoned. Marine wind farms are large-scale projects with an attractive production profile, resulting from strong wind characteristics at sea, which can be the perfect raw material for the production of green hydrogen," added Vice President Orsted Offshore.

As he recalled, Orsted is currently involved in six projects to produce green hydrogen. In early February, the company made an investment decision for the demonstration project H2RES – an electrolysiser with 2 MW power, powered by electricity from offshore wind farms, which is to produce up to a thousand kilograms of hydrogen per day. The first batch of green gas is expected to flow from the installation later this year and will be used to drive vehicles in the Copenhagen region and in Zealand.

Another project is the Lingen refinery in Germany. The Danish, together with BP, plan to launch 50 MW electrolysis, capable of producing a ton of hydrogen per hour by 2024. This is an introduction to launching a 10 times stronger plant in the refinery.

In a project in another German refinery, Heide, Orsted will spend one third – 30 million EUR – on the construction of 30 MW electrolyser, powered from RES. In the further part of the project there are pipelines for hydrogen distribution, and eventually installation with 700 MW electrolysiser.

In cooperation with the large chemical company and fertilizer producer Yara, Orsted will build 100 MW, powered from offshore wind farms electrolysis. It will produce hydrogen for ammonia synthesis at the Yara factory in Dutch Sluiskol. In the first stage, production is expected to be 75,000 tonnes of hydrogen per year, or about 10% of plant consumption.

Together with Copenhagen airports, SAS airlines and other partners Orsted plans to produce "green" hydrogen fuels. Finally, it is assumed that 1300 MW electrolysers will produce enough hydrogen to produce 250,000 tons of fuel for buses, trucks, ships and even aircraft.

In the UK, Orsted participates in the Gigastack project, namely the development and construction of a low-cost modular 5 MW electrolysiser, powered by windmills at sea. In the end, a full-size industrial installation with electrolysis units of 1000 MW is being talked about.

Controlled by the Danish Government Orsted is a partner of PGE in the construction project in the Polish economic zone of the Baltic two wind farms with a power of 2.5 GW. Both companies will share half of the shares in the joint venture.

Source: PAP