Germany’s Uniper has selected New York-headquartered Plug Power as the electrolyser supplier for its H2Maasvlakte project in the port of Rotterdam, with the aim to commission the first 100MW phase by 2026. The project will expand to 500MW of capacity by 2030.

H2Maasvlakte received Important Project of Common European Interest status as part of the €5.2bn ($5.48bn) Hy2use programme announced in September last year. The following month, Uniper contracted France’s Technip Energies to begin Feed work on the project, supported by subsidies from the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy.

The Netherlands has set a target of 500MW of installed capacity by 2025, reaching 3–4GW by 2030. The Dutch government has also provided an undisclosed amount of funding to French firm Air Liquide’s Curthyl project at the port of Rotterdam, which plans to install a 10MW electrolyser to produce hydrogen using curtailed energy from a nearby windfarm.

100MW – Initial capacity of H2Maasvlakte

While previous announcements indicated a 2025 commissioning date for H2Maasvlakte, Uniper is now scheduling commissioning for the following year.

Pending FID, Plug is contracted to deliver ten prefabricated proton-exchange-membrane electrolyser arrays to the project. This equipment will be manufactured in the EU and US, the manufacturer says.

Plug claims it is on track to commission 500t/d of green hydrogen production capacity in North America by 2025 and 1,000t/d worldwide by 2028. The company has 2GW of electrolyser capacity in its near-term backlog and aims to ramp up its gigafactory in Rochester, New York towards producing 100MW of electrolysers a month by mid-Q2 this year.

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Author: Polly Martin