Germany energy firm RWE has secured the construction and environmental permits to build a 100MW electrolyser near the Magnum Power Station in the Dutch port city of Eemshaven.
The green hydrogen project will source power from the OranjeWind offshore wind farm, a 795MW array in the North Sea that RWE is building in partnership with French oil & gas giant TotalEnergies.
The oil major has previously disclosed plans to dedicate its own share of the renewable electricity production from the OranjeWind offshore wind project to power 350MW in electrolyser projects to produce green hydrogen to reduce emissions at its refineries in Northern Europe.
RWE had bought the Magnum power station in Eemshaven from Swedish peer Vattenfall in 2022. The 1.4GW plant in the northern Dutch province of Groningen is able to co-fire up to 30% of hydrogen with natural gas, and the utility had said on acquisition that it could convert the plant to rely on hydrogen as its sole fuel by the end of the decade.
However, blending hydrogen with natural gas for power generation will not deliver significant climate benefits given the high cost of producing green H2. Since hydrogen is less energy-dense than methane, a 20% H2 blend by volume would only reduce emissions by 7%.
Instead, RWE appears to have pivoted towards producing renewable hydrogen to sell on to other industries.
“Securing the necessary permits brings us a step closer to realising this electrolyser in Eemshaven,” said Sopna Sury, chief operating officer for hydrogen at RWE Generation. “This would enable RWE to provide industry with green hydrogen to make their production processes more sustainable.
“With our plans of this electrolyser at the Eemshaven, RWE continues to contribute to the further growth in the area and helps to establish this cluster as a centre for renewable energy.”
RWE noted in a press release that a final investment decision on the 100MW electrolyser, as well as a 50MW green hydrogen project it is developing at the nearby Eems Power Station, would depend on “the timely availability of the necessary infrastructure, such as the national hydrogen backbone, to transport the green hydrogen to customers”.
The utility has already received €124.9m ($135.8m) from the Dutch government towards the 50MW Eems Power Station development.
A version of this article first appeared on Hydrogen Insight's sister title, Recharge.
