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World’s first hydrogen-producing offshore wind turbine gets funding boost
1/6/2022
News
Vattenfall has been awarded £9.3mn in innovation funding from the Net Zero Innovation Portfolio Low Carbon Hydrogen Supply 2 fund by the UK government. The funding will be used to develop what is claimed will be the world’s first hydrogen-producing offshore wind turbine, with the electrolyser sited directly onto an existing operational turbine.
Vattenfall has been awarded £9.3mn in innovation funding from the Net Zero Innovation Portfolio Low Carbon Hydrogen Supply 2 fund by the UK government. The funding will be used to develop what is claimed will be the world’s first hydrogen-producing offshore wind turbine, with the electrolyser sited directly onto an existing operational turbine.
The pilot project at Vattenfall’s offshore wind farm in Aberdeen Bay, Scotland, will have an output of 8 MW and will be able to produce enough hydrogen every day to power a hydrogen bus to travel 24,000 km. The hydrogen will be piped to shore at Aberdeen Harbour.
‘Placing hydrogen electrolysers on offshore wind turbines is likely to be the quickest and cheapest way of providing fossil-free hydrogen at scale,’ says Danielle Lane, UK Country Manager for Vattenfall.
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.
‘The availability of large quantities of fossil-free hydrogen will play a key role in the decarbonisation of heavy industry (predominantly in steel, chemicals, and fertiliser production as well as refining), as well as heavy transport,’ reports Vattenfall.
First production is expected as early as 2025.
Swedish government grants offshore wind permit
Meanwhile, the Swedish government has granted Vattenfall a construction permit for an offshore wind farm at Kriegers Flak in the south of the Baltic Sea.
Some 40 to 50 wind turbines are proposed, with a total capacity of approximately 640 MW. Annual production would be sufficient to charge 1mn electric cars per year or to meet the annual needs of just over 500,000 households.
However, Vattenfall has yet to secure the necessary permits as well as the electricity grid connection on land, which are prerequisites for completing the wind farm. The company is planning for a possible investment decision in 2025, with a view to commissioning the wind farm around 2028.
Largest onshore wind farm
Vattenfall also reports that it recently inaugurated Blakliden Fäbodberget, its largest wind farm onshore Sweden to date with 84 turbines.
The farm, which is owned by Vattenfall (30%) along with Vestas and AIP Management, has a total output of 353 MW and will help meet Sweden’s demand for electricity which is expected to double by 2045.
