The Netherlands Enterprise Agency will subsidise a pilot plant owned by independent oil and gas producer Neptune Energy to produce green hydrogen on a working offshore gas platform.

The project, called PosHYdon, will be hosted by the Q13a-A platform which was the first fully electrified platform in the Dutch North Sea.

The pilot plant will convert seawater into demineralised water and then into green hydrogen via a 1MW electrolyser powered by offshore wind. The hydrogen output, expected to be up to 400 kg/day, will be blended with natural gas and transported to shore via an existing pipeline.

400kg/d – Potential green hydrogen production of plant

Neptune is developing the pilot in a consortium with unnamed partners with expertise in offshore wind, green power generation and hydrogen transportation. The plant is still in planning phase, with the electrolyser yet to be installed. The project partners hope to begin hydrogen production within three years.

“PosHYdon will provide the insights necessary to develop large-scale green hydrogen production at sea,” says Neptune’s managing director for the Netherlands, Lex de Groot.

“The Dutch North Sea sector has an exciting future as a new energy hub and can play a leading role in large-scale green hydrogen production for northwestern Europe, given its infrastructure that connects offshore with onshore.”

Ideal location

Neptune says the location of Q13a-A platform, approximately 13km off the coast of Scheveningen in the Netherlands, and existing connections to transportation infrastructure make it an ideal host for the PosHYdon pilot.

The Netherlands is accelerating its plans for the deployment of hydrogen. Dutch natural gas grid operator Gasunie plans to start work in the autumn on a €1.5bn ($1.8bn) national hydrogen pipeline network after receiving formal permissions from the government earlier this month.

The Dutch network should be in place by 2027 and will consist of 85pc repurposed natural gas lines, supplemented by new ones specifically built for hydrogen. The network will have a capacity of 10GW, equal to 25pc of the total energy consumption of Dutch industry.

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Author: Stuart Penson