A feasibility study for the state government found that the site of the decommissioned coal power station Moorburg in the city state of Hamburg would lend itself to the production of green hydrogen with a capacity of up to 500 megawatts (MW).
Electrolysers can be built in parts of the existing power plant infrastructure, which is ideal. As a result of this report, a new facility could be built at the same time as a portion of the power plant is dismantled, and then expanded.
As an Important Project of Common European Interest, construction on the plant could begin in 2026. Funding for the project is possible (IPCEI). Other potential uses for the hard coal plant were examined, including biomass heating, gas power generation, and high-temperature storage, but these were found to be less economically viable and less secure in the future.
Sen. Michael Westhagemann said that the report supported the plans of Shell, Mitsubishi, Hamburger Energiewerke and Vattenfall, which are part of the Hamburg Green Hydrogen Hub (HGHH) consortium, to build an electrolyser that can be scaled up to 100 megawatts (MW) as part of IPCEI.
Vattenfall, the owner and operator of the Moorburg plant, plans to shut it down in 2021 as part of the federal coal exit strategy, making it one of Germany’s largest and most modern hard coal plants. Vattenfall put a halt to the plant’s decommissioning for a few weeks after the outbreak of hostilities in Ukraine, but it hasn’t announced any plans to restart coal burning there.
