German gas company VNG and hydrogen project developer HyCC have announced plans for a 500MW green hydrogen project near the Piesteritz Chemical Park in the state of Saxony-Anhalt.
VNG and HyCC aim to reach a final investment decision on the facility, called “GreenRoot”, in 2026, with a start of operations scheduled for 2029.
Hydrogen Insight has reached out to confirm whether all 500MW of capacity will be on line by 2029, or if the project will be built in phases.
If fully built by 2029, it would be one of the largest in Germany, with nearly five-times more capacity than has been installed in the country to date.
Germany targets 10GW of electrolyser capacity by 2030 to meet a share of its expected 95-130TWh of demand by that year. However, green hydrogen projects within the country have been hampered by high power prices and a lack of certainty around offtake.
GreenRoot’s site would be in the immediate vicinity of SKW Piesteritz, Germany’s largest ammonia and urea producer, which has already indicated that it is willing to offtake volumes of green H2 for its operations — although no formal offtake agreement appears to have been signed.
However, VNG and HyCC suggest that GreenRoot will be connected to Germany’s core network of hydrogen pipelines which is due to be completed by 2032, although some parts will start up as early as next year.
This would allow GreenRoot to supply other users in Germany, particularly in the so-called “Central Chemical Triangle” of industrial parks across Saxony-Anhalt and neighbouring state Saxony.
“The domestic production of green hydrogen in cooperation with our partners and our local customers is intended to strengthen the region of Central Germany as an important industrial location in the long term and pave the way for sustainable value creation in this region,” said Konstantin von Oldenburg, managing director of VNG H&V, a gas trading subsidiary of the wider group.
However, von Oldenburg warned that the current regulatory framework may make progress on the project difficult.
“We therefore advocate that the EU Commission make the criteria for defining green hydrogen more flexible as soon as possible and deregulate them,” he said.
Von Oldenburg also called for the climate protection contracts offered by the German government, which support industries switching to new processes which would reduce emissions, to be “further strengthened… and at the same time made more pragmatic”.
“In our view, a sustainable stabilisation of [greenhouse gas] quotas through a 3-fold crediting of green hydrogen and an exemption from network charges for electrolysers beyond 2030 would also be important,” he added.
Hydrogen Insight has reached out to confirm whether the project will go ahead if there are no changes to the current policy framework.
