The companies are contributing with their developments to an innovative solution that fully integrates an electrolyzer into an offshore wind turbine as a single synchronized system to directly produce green hydrogen. The companies intend to provide a full-scale offshore demonstration of the solution by 2025/2026. The German Federal Ministry of Education and Research announced today that the developments can be implemented as part of the ideas competition "Hydrogen Republic of Germany".
Christian Bruch, CEO of Siemens Energy, explains, “Together with Siemens Gamesa, we are in a unique position to develop this game changing solution. We are the company that can leverage its highly flexible electrolyzer technology and create and redefine the future of sustainable offshore energy production. With these developments, the potential of regions with abundant offshore wind will become accessible for the hydrogen economy. It is a prime example of enabling us to store and transport wind energy, thus reducing the carbon footprint of economy.”
Over a timeframe of five years Siemens Gamesa plans to invest €80 million and Siemens Energy is targeting to invest €40 million in the developments. Siemens Gamesa will adapt its development of the world’s most powerful turbine, the SG14-222 DD offshore wind turbine to integrate an electrolysis system seamlessly into the turbine’s operations. Siemens Energy will develop a new electrolysis product to not only meet the needs of the harsh maritime offshore environment and be in perfect sync with the wind turbine, but also to create a new competitive benchmark for green hydrogen.
The ultimate fully integrated offshore wind-to-hydrogen solution will produce green hydrogen using an electrolyzer array located at the base of the offshore wind turbine tower, blazing a trail towards offshore hydrogen production. The solution will lower the cost of hydrogen by being able to run off grid, opening up more and better wind sites. The companies’ developments will serve as a test bed for making large-scale, cost-efficient hydrogen production a reality and will prove the feasibility of reliable, effective implementation of wind turbines in systems for producing hydrogen from renewable energy.
The developments are part of the H2Mare initiative which is a lighthouse project likely to be supported by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research ideas competition "Hydrogen Republic of Germany". The H2mare initiative under the consortium lead of Siemens Energy is a modular project consisting of multiple sub-projects to which more than 30 partners from industry, institutes and academia are contributing. Siemens Energy and Siemens Gamesa will contribute to the H2Mare initiative with their own developments in separate modular building blocks.
Currently 80 million tons of hydrogen are produced each year and production is expected to increase by about 20 million tons by 2030. Just 1% of that hydrogen is currently generated from green energy sources. Many studies suggest that by 2050 production will have grown to about 500 million tons with a significant shift to green hydrogen. The expected growth will require between 1,000 GW and 4,000 GW of renewable capacity by 2050 to meet demand, which highlights the vast potential for growth in wind power.
