Orsted and Danish renewables developer Skovgaard Energy have signed a letter of intent to jointly develop a power-to-x (P2X) project in western Denmark.
The facility will be built in several phases, helping to establish a large-scale export opportunity for renewable hydrogen in Europe, the partners said.
The first phase of the project will have an expected electrolysis capacity of 150MW and will be powered by onshore wind and solar.
Skovgaard Energy has already commenced the development of both the P2X project and the associated wind and solar facilities, to help speed up the development of the project, if the regulatory work goes according to plan.
The plant will be located in Idomlund near Holstebro.
Idomlund is expected to be the landfall for parts of the offshore wind build-out in the North Sea, which enables easy access to very large renewable energy resources.
The EU countries around the North Sea have set combined offshore wind targets of 65GW by 2030 and at least 150GW by 2050.
The project’s proximity to large-scale offshore wind will allow Orsted and Skovgaard Energy to leverage their respective generation portfolios to create additional value.
If the necessary offshore wind capacity and hydrogen infrastructure in and out of Denmark are established, the facility’s electrolysis capacity will be able to increase to more than 3GW, for export.
This will contribute significantly to Denmark’s target of 4-6GW of electrolysis capacity by 2030 and could make the facility one of the largest in Europe.
Anders Nordstrom, Chief Operating Officer of Orsted P2X, said: “Europe needs green solutions at scale to fight climate change and to secure regional energy independence.
“Few countries have as strong a potential to become a green energy exporter as Denmark due to its abundant and low-cost offshore wind resources, which are supplemented by onshore wind and solar PV.
“By partnering with Skovgaard Energy on the Idomlund project, Orsted is entering one of the most strategically advantageous projects to leverage the strong fit between large-scale renewable energy and Power-to-X.”