Vattenfall is planning to deploy an electrolyser at its operational Aberdeen project off east Scotland.
The Swedish utility is working on proposals to retrofit one of the project’s 11 Vestas 8.8MW turbines to produce the gas as early as 2024 or 2025 and put the pre-commercial scheme through its paces for between eight and ten years, as first reported by subscriber-only reNEWS on 1 December 2021.
Vattenfall wants to halt export to the grid from the machine and instead hook it up to hydrogen production equipment housed inside seven 40-foot containers that would be located on a newly-extended transition piece.
Various opportunities for offtake, including transportation, industrial uses and marine operations are also still under consideration.
The hydrogen plan “offers a unique opportunity to test the viability of offshore production of green hydrogen and help move towards commercial scale operations”, according to early-stage proposals filed by the developer.
“The development of an offshore hydrogen production turbine at [Aberdeen] will not only help the future commercialisation of this technology but will provide benefits to the local environment and economy in terms of the availability of green hydrogen which could be utilised by various users, including local transportation networks and marine operators.”
Aberdeen, also known as the European Offshore Wind Deployment Centre, has been in operation since 2018.
It feature various innovative technologies such as 66kV-rated cables and suction bucket jacket foundations.
Several other early-stage UK offshore wind-green hydrogen projects are vying for commissioning slots along a similar timeline to Aberdeen.
These include ITM Power, Orsted and Siemens Gamesa’s Oyster scheme and the 20MW first phase of the Gigastack project being pursued by ITM and Orsted.