Construction of hydrogen network in Hamburg port to start in 2023

Hamburg is accelerating the port’s planned hydrogen network in response to the perceived present energy crisis.

According to the municipal utility Gasnetz Hamburg, the project will begin sooner than expected and building work will commence in 2019. So, prior to the commencement of a definitive cash commitment, the Federal Ministry of Economics allowed an “early start of measures.”

Hamburg is accelerating the port’s planned hydrogen network in response to the perceived present energy crisis. According to the municipal utility Gasnetz Hamburg, the project will begin sooner than expected and building work will commence in 2019. So, prior to the commencement of a definitive cash commitment, the Federal Ministry of Economics allowed an “early start of measures.”

As part of the “Important Projects of Common European Interest” (IPCEI) initiative, numerous Hamburg enterprises collectively filed for financing for over a dozen projects, including the hydrogen network. The financing decision, which Gasnetz Hamburg anticipates coming before the end of the year, will be the only time a precise funding amount will be known.

The network, which would initially be 40 kilometers long, will provide climate-neutral “green” hydrogen to the port area’s industrial sector. The port is regarded as the best site for a hydrogen ecosystem since it is a sizable, continuous industrial region. This also applies to the project to construct a sizable electrolyzer for the generation of hydrogen at the location of the long-debated Hamburg-Moorburg coal-fired power station, which is no longer operational.

According to the statement, the network “will be connected to the European hydrogen transmission network in the succeeding expansion stages and is projected to grow to a network length of more than 60 kilometers in the next years.” Future facilities for seaside imports of green hydrogen may also contribute.

The HH-WIN hydrogen network, according to Greens Senator for Climate and Energy Jens Kerstan, would enable Hamburg to switch more than a third of its natural gas use to fossil-free energy. We must closely monitor the trinity of energy supply security, sustainability, and affordability and we must break our dependency on fossil fuels as soon as we can, especially given the current circumstances.