In focus: Offshore hydrogen steals the show once again

In a world troubled by climate change and energy crisis, it has become clear that hydrogen will play a significant role in creating a low-carbon energy mix. Multiple studies have explored its advantages in decarbonising hard-to-abate sectors and boosting the security of supplies as new pilot and large-scale production projects emerge in Europe, with the Netherlands and France stealing the spotlight this week.

The week kicked off with an announcement from the Dutch government which designated an area for what will become the world’s largest offshore hydrogen production project. The selected area is Ten noorden van de Waddeneilanden (the North of the Wadden Islands), identified earlier for offshore wind development and deemed most suitable for providing 500 MW of electrolysis capacity and for the transport of hydrogen to land.

The project, planned to be operational around 2031, will be the first that connects to Gasunie’s offshore hydrogen transport network, planned to be built to bring large quantities of hydrogen ashore and to connect to the onshore hydrogen network.

Another offshore hydrogen project was revealed by French green hydrogen production specialist, Lhyfe, and Centrica, the UK-headquartered multinational energy company. The companies agreed to jointly develop offshore renewable hydrogen in the UK , starting with a pilot project in the Southern North Sea.

With this project, Lhyfe and Centrica aim to produce, store and utilise green hydrogen in the UK and prove that an end-to-end hydrogen production, storage, and distribution system is possible in the country. They estimate that green hydrogen produced using electricity generated by offshore wind is expected to play an increasingly important role in the UK’s energy mix, with rapid expansion expected in both of these areas over the next 5-10 years.

Electricity generated by offshore wind is also playing a part in reducing emissions from the oil and gas sector. With this in mind, Crown Estate Scotland has just selected 13 out of a total of 19 applications with a combined capacity of around 5.5 GW in the world’s first leasing round designed to enable offshore wind energy to directly supply offshore oil and gas platforms.

The INTOG (Innovation and Targeted Oil & Gas) leasing process allowed developers to apply for seabed rights to develop offshore wind projects that either reduce emissions from the North Sea oil and gas sector – by supplying renewable electricity directly to oil and gas infrastructure (TOG) – or consist of small-scale (IN) innovative projects of 100 MW or less.

Staying in the UK, it is worth mentioning that the country’s government entered into a new agreement with France, committing to greater cooperation on energy resilience and low-carbon technologies, such as hydrogen, offshore wind and carbon capture, usage and storage (CCUS) , as well as civil nuclear, including new build, R&D and decommissioning.

France and French companies have also dominated the headlines this week with investments and development in the renewable energy sector.

In the marine renewables sector, France became home to a tidal energy turbine brought by Scottish company Nova Innovation. The company installed its tidal energy turbine at the Étel Estuary , marking its first deployment outside of Scotland.

Furthermore, ten public and private founders set up the OPEN-C Foundation , the largest European centre for sea trials entirely dedicated to floating wind power and marine renewable energies, in France.

Lhyfe, the developer of the world’s first offshore green hydrogen production demonstrator , acquired a 49% stake in Flexens , the Finnish developer of renewable and green hydrogen and Power-to-X projects while TotalEnergies, a well-known French energy player, decided to step up its investments in low-carbon energies to $5 billion in 2023 .

TotalEnergies said it was “executing its transformation strategy to a multi-energy company” during 2022 and “investing the most among the majors to build the energy system of tomorrow.” Thanks to this renewed portfolio, with no stranded assets, the oil major highlighted that it “now benefits from a more resilient and profitable oil portfolio.”