Uniper plans to make German Wilhelmshaven a hub for climate-friendly hydrogen

Düsseldorf, April 15 - Neftegaz.RU. Under the name Green Wilhelmshaven, Uniper plans to establish a German national hub for hydrogen in Wilhelmshaven and is working on a corresponding feasibility study.
An import terminal for green ammonia is planned.
The terminal is planned to be equipped with an ammonia cracker for producing green hydrogen and will also be connected to the planned hydrogen network.

A 410-megawatt electrolysis plant is also planned, which – in combination with the import terminal - would be capable of supplying around 295,000 metric tons or 10% of the demand expected for the whole of Germany in 2030.

The generated climate friendly hydrogen will primarily be used to supply local industry, but it will also be possible to feed it into the national hydrogen network.
This approach will help to solve one of the key problems of energy transition: security of supply.
The NH3 splitting plant for producing green hydrogen would be the 1^st scaled plant of its kind.

David Bryson, COO Uniper said:

• We need to get hydrogen out of the laboratory and start using it in large-scale applications and marketable industrial solutions
• We should make it into a commodity and exploit its wide variety of uses
• One way of achieving this is to import green ammonia and convert it into hydrogen, which is something we are looking at for Wilhelmshaven
• Currently, Germany plans to generate 14 TWh of green hydrogen in 2030, but the demand for that year is forecast to be 90–100 TWh - the discrepancy between these 2 figures is abundantly clear
• We will be heavily dependent on imports if we want to use hydrogen to help us achieve our climate goals

Commissioning of the new terminal is planned for the 2^nd half of this decade, depending on national import demand and export opportunities.
Uniper is also working with its partners on a project to ascertain whether it would be feasible to build a direct reduction plant with upstream hydrogen electrolysis on the site of the existing power plant in Wilhelmshaven, as well as the required infrastructure for supplying raw materials.
The aim is to produce around 2 million metric tons of green crude iron using hydrogen generated via wind power.

Axel Wietfeld, CEO Uniper Hydrogen said:

• One sector in which hydrogen can play a crucial role in reducing CO² emissions is steel production
• Currently, each metric ton of crude steel produced releases approximately one metric ton of CO² emissions
• Hydrogen is the only realistic option for decarbonizing this industry

Originally, the company explored the idea of constructing a floating import terminal for LNG at the Wilhelmshaven site.
In October 2020, a market test to show binding interest proved that there is currently not enough interest in the LNG sector in terms of booking large, long-term capacities for LNG regasification in Germany.