Marine Electrolysis – RWE plans to produce hydrogen for offshore wind farm energy needs

After being fully operational in 2026, the Nordsee Two wind farm can also produce hydrogen directly in the plant area from self-generated wind power. Several companies, including RWE Energy Group, are currently developing power source electrolysis, which will be particularly important and valuable for the energy transition in Europe, directly on the wind turbine access platforms of the H2Mare research project. While H2Mare is due for completion in 2025 with the construction of an offshore wind farm electrolysis pilot plant on a wind farm, Nordsee Two could commercially implement the technology for the first time a year later. RWE is developing a 433 megawatt (MW) Nordsea Two wind farm with Canadian energy supplier Northland Power. However, RWE has now received funding from the European Union Innovation Fund, a support vessel from the European Union (EU), to use innovative technology specifically for Nordsee 2.

As RWE and Northland now announce, the electrolysis system is to produce hydrogen for bunkering and to generate emergency power supplies for the systems and transformer platform from the wind field’s 433-megawatt wind energy. At the beginning of the year, the partners formed a joint venture to build offshore wind farms, which will also build and operate Nordsee Two. RWE received the additional payment fee from the Federal Network Agency (BNetzA) in September 2021, when BNetzA was awarded the contract for the centrally developed N3.8 project planning field by BSH. It was one of three awards in the first bidding round of the so-called Centralized Bidding Form under the Wind Offshore (WindSeeG) Act 2017. The second bidding round of WindSeeG will be completed in September 2022.

In addition, the partners have now announced that they want to equip the project with a capacity of 15 megawatts of turbines. The first project in the German North Sea with turbines of the largest generation of wind turbines developed to date is the 900 MW He Dreh wind farm, which is currently scheduled for completion in 2025. However, all wind turbine manufacturers who have announced turbines with a capacity of 15 megawatts are still developing these systems.

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