The Dutch government has set aside funds to hand out subsidies in the world’s first tender to construct a 500MW offshore hydrogen electrolyser project powered exclusively by offshore wind by 2031.

“It is likely that there will not be a positive financial business case yet for an investment in an offshore electrolyser and some form of government support is needed. It is still unknown how much support will be required and budget depends on budgetary proposal,” the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy tells Hydrogen Economist.

“It is too early to tell if we will enter a bid” Geerbex, Vattenfall

The government plans to launch the tender for the 500MW offshore electrolyser and an equivalent 500MW offshore windfarm in 2025.

A smaller-scale pilot project will precede the bumper 500MW site, with a tender planned for next year to build a 50–100MW offshore wind-powered electrolyser. “This should address the technology’s teething problems so that the 500MW project can be realised efficiently,” the ministry adds. The site for the pilot project is expected to be announced later this year.

The Dutch North Sea is already home to the world’s first offshore electrolyser powered by an adjacent wind park, the 1.25MW Poshydon project located 13km off the Dutch coast on the Neptune Energy-owned Q13a-A gas platform. The project is under construction and slated to undergo commissioning at the end of this year or early next year, says Rene Peters, business director for gas technologies at Dutch research agency TNO, which is a partner in the project. Due to its small size, the platform is not a suitable site for the 50–100MW pilot project.

The Ten noorden van de Waddeneilanden (TNW) 1 tender was initially earmarked to house a 700MW offshore wind site only and should have been auctioned off last year. But due to the Wadden Sea’s protected Unesco status as the world’s largest system of intertidal sand and mud flats, finding a suitable location to place an offshore wind export cable proved impossible. This forced the government to rethink its strategy for the TNW 1 site, which resulted in its decision to make it a pilot site for offshore hydrogen production instead.

“The area was chosen because… an existing natural gas pipeline can potentially be reused for [hydrogen] transport to shore and it can be properly connected to the onshore hydrogen network,” the government said in the initial announcement.

Dutch pipeline operator NGT owns a 178km gas pipeline that transports around 30pc of the Dutch North Sea gas ashore in the north of the country and also runs through the Wadden Sea. Discussions are now underway on whether a part of the pipeline can be repurposed to transport hydrogen instead, or whether blending the future hydrogen with North Sea gas is a better option.

“We prefer to connect the pilot projects to a dedicated—possibly repurposed—hydrogen pipeline, but we are still considering other options, especially for the small pilot project,” the ministry says.

German utility RWE and Swedish counterpart Vattenfall are both interested in the tender. “We are looking with interest at the plans for the [TNW] offshore wind park. However, it is still uncertain whether this project will go ahead, and the details of a tender are not yet known. So, it is too early to tell if we will enter a bid,” Ireen Geerbex, senior project manager for offshore development at Vattenfall, tells Hydrogen Economist.

RWE, which is involved in two other offshore hydrogen projects in the Netherlands, also says it is awaiting more details. Dutch utility Eneco declined to comment, while Shell did not return requests for comment.

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Author: Karolin Schaps