Over the last four years, the Dolphyn idea for producing “green” hydrogen at scale from offshore floating wind has been developed.
This work has been expedited by the BEIS Energy Innovation Programme’s Hydrogen Supply Competition (2016-2021). It was determined during Phase 1 of the initiative that the idea was the most economically advantageous way to produce hydrogen at a multi-GW scale when compared to other centralized and decentralized solutions, both onshore and offshore. A prototype design solution for the ERM Dolphyn was subsequently created and brought to the FEED stage.
The project has gradually reduced design risk via the work done in this phase (Phase 2) to the point where we can comfortably go forward to a 10MW unit FEED from the prior 2MW unit. This would enable us to complete the first 10 MW unit more rapidly and will shorten the development timeline by up to 4 years for the first commercial Dolphyn wind farm, which will generally have 100 to 300 MW of capacity. By the end of 2024, the project’s goal is to build and put the first 10MW unit into service. Currently, in development, the first commercial-scale farms (between 100 and 300 MW) are anticipated to be operating by the late 2020s.