Sif Group, GE Renewable Energy, Pondera and KCI have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) for the feasibility study of an offshore green hydrogen project.
The Green Hydrogen Centralized Offshore Wind Production Project, or AmpHytrite, is aimed at “mastering the complexity” of a centralised offshore and off-grid hydrogen production unit.
The ultimate objective of the project would be to contribute to affordable large-scale green hydrogen production at sea.
If the study outcome is viable, the AmpHytrite demonstrator will be installed at Sif’s Maasvlakte 2 terminal in the Port of Rotterdam, in the Netherlands.
The demonstrator is planned for operational use and testing by 2023.
The project scope, which is designed to simulate the complexity of having a centralised green hydrogen unit operating offshore and off-grid, would address the end-to-end process of producing green electrons by an offshore wind turbine – Haliade-X – through to the offtake profile for the onshore hydrogen customer.
The project will have three phases.
Phase one would involve a concept study in which project teams of KCI, Sif, Pondera and GE Renewable Energy carry out a feasibility study of offshore, off-grid centralised green hydrogen production.
In the second phase, envisioned to be operational by 2023, a small-scale (producing 750 tonnes of green hydrogen annually) onshore unit at Sif’s Maasvlakte 2 terminal is foreseen to be installed, solely powered by the Haliade turbine on site, and operated as it if located offshore and off-grid.
The objective of this phase would be to develop and construct a smaller version of the main phase as proof of concept, taking on the full complexity of offshore and off-grid operation, whilst being installed onshore at the Sif terminal.
The third phase would involve scaling up the concept to a total windfarm size at full scale, offshore and off-grid, using the tested technology of phase two.