The Dutch government has given a group, which includes BW Offshore, a grant of €3 million to construct a large-scale floating green hydrogen and ammonia project. SwitcH2 is in charge of the OFFSET project, which also includes MARIN, TU Delft, and Strohm.
The project will be built on the idea of floating production and offloading vessel (FPSO) and seeks to show how producing green fuel can be done more affordably. Participants from a variety of industries, including energy firms, wind farm operators, and developers, as well as potential off-takers from energy-intensive industry sectors, will be included.
The partners want to create a floating hydrogen and/or ammonia production and storage plant as part of the project by 2027, which will be connected to a nearby wind farm. While the produced ammonia can be shipped to end consumers by shuttle tankers, the produced hydrogen can be brought to shore through newly built TCP or existing oil and gas pipelines.
While TU Delft will take the lead in the study into the direct use of saltwater in the electrolysis process and build a reliable seawater electrolysis process through the use of better electrocatalysts, BW Offshore will concentrate on the topside arrangement, hull, and mooring system design. For the storage and unloading of hydrogen, Strohm will offer its own non-corrosive Thermoplastic Composite Pipe (TCP) technology.
The project was chosen as the grant recipient under the Missiegedregen Onderzoek en Ontwikkeling (MOOI) – Mission-driven Research and Development – an initiative by the RVO (the execution arm of the Ministry of Economic Affairs & Climate Policy in the Netherlands). The OFFSET partnership brings together reputable partners and concepts with cutting-edge components that could open doors to the production and distribution of gasoline with no carbon emissions.
“BW Offshore is committed to exploring opportunities which will support the transition to low carbon energy solutions,” stated Fredrik Savio, SVP of project development at BW Offshore. The OFFSET partnership brings together reputable partners and concepts with cutting-edge components that could open doors to the production and distribution of gasoline with no carbon emissions.