Wintershall Dea, Europe’s largest independent gas and oil producer, is developing a significant new project in Germany to produce clean hydrogen and store carbon dioxide underground in the North Sea.
The rationale is that business and homes continue to want a flexible and reliable energy supply while also reducing CO2 emissions. And these objectives must be accomplished in a way that reinforces Europe’s energy security, regardless of global dynamics.
Wintershall Dea’s BlueHyNow project will be created in Wilhelmshaven, Germany, on the German North Sea coast. Wilhelmshaven already has a robust, networked infrastructure in place: two close landing ports for Norwegian gas, the possibility of hydrogen storage in adjacent facilities, and a direct connection to Germany’s planned hydrogen network. It also features a deep-water port that can accommodate huge tankers. Furthermore, CO2 may be transferred from Wilhelmshaven. Additionally, work on establishing the country’s first LNG terminal has begun in a seaside town in northern Germany.
Wintershall Dea’s BlueHyNow initiative intends to manufacture environmentally friendly hydrogen from natural gas at the Wilhelmshaven energy hub. The project is expected to generate more than 200,000 cubic metres of hydrogen every hour. This translates to 5.6 TWh per year, or roughly three times the energy consumption of Volkswagen’s Wolfsburg, Germany, factory in 2019. Wilhelmshaven’s factory will be powered by green wind energy from the North Sea.
The hydrogen produced will be put into the pipeline network and distributed to industrial users, who will cut their CO2 emissions by consuming the decarbonized fuel. CO2 removed during the hydrogen generation process will be transported by sea to offshore areas in Norway and Denmark and stored in underground reservoirs beneath the seabed. By establishing this CO2 storage infrastructure, the initiative will also enable the storage of CO2 emissions from energy-intensive businesses that cannot be avoided. It may even be possible to achieve net zero emissions if bioenergy is combined with carbon capture and storage (BECCS).
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