Shell Nederland and Eneco participate in wind tender

Shell aims to produce green hydrogen on the Tweede Maasvlakte using green electricity from wind power. This wind power will preferably come from the Hollandse Kust (noord) offshore wind farm. Through their joint venture CrossWind, Shell and Eneco are participating in the tender for this wind farm. Both companies have issued guarantees to CrossWind for investments in the construction and operation of Hollandse Kust (noord).

The Netherlands is working hard to increase the amount of renewable power generation, for example by building offshore wind parks on a large scale. This approach means the Netherlands is in an excellent position to become the hydrogen hub for Northwest-Europe, made possible due to its unique location and offshore wind potential in the North Sea and its extensive transport network of gas pipelines.

The Netherlands will need both green electrons and green molecules in order for the energy transition to succeed. Green hydrogen can play an important role in the decarbonisation of industry, which currently uses large volumes of grey hydrogen. Replacing this hydrogen produced from natural gas with green hydrogen contributes to the decarbonisation of the energy system. A second important use of the hydrogen will be in heavy duty transport, where due to the heavy weight of batteries the application of batteries for electric propulsion is limited.

Hollandse Kust (noord)

Shell and Eneco are participating in the tender for Hollandse Kust (noord) through their joint venture CrossWind. Both companies have a long and successful track record of developing, building and operating offshore wind farms. Together with the CrossWind consortium, they plan to have Hollandse Kust (noord) operational in 2023 with an estimated installed capacity of 759 MW, generating an estimated 3.3 TWh per year. This is sufficient renewable power to supply more than 1 million Dutch households with green electricity. The wind farm will be located approximately 18.5 km off the Dutch coast near the town of Egmond aan Zee.

Together with the large-scale development of offshore wind projects comes the challenge of intermittency in wind generation. That is why CrossWind will invest in various innovations that can be implemented at full-scale in future wind farms to help balance the electricity network and keep societal costs low.

Green hydrogen-hub

If the current plan materialises, the hydrogen plant on the Tweede Maasvlakte will be built on a site especially designated by the Port of Rotterdam (2 GW conversion park) with Shell as the launching customer. In this plant, green hydrogen will be produced through electrolysis – a process in which water is split into hydrogen and oxygen using renewable electricity. The hydrogen plant will have a capacity of around 200 MW. The final investment decision for the hydrogen plant has not been taken yet.

Shell intends to start operations by 2023 to produce about 50 000 – 60 000 kg of hydrogen per day. The green hydrogen produced will initially be used at the Shell refinery in Pernis to decarbonise the production of fuels. This saves a minimum of 200 000 tpy of CO₂. It is important that as of 2023 there is enough green hydrogen available, which can be used to decarbonise trucks in the transport sector. This way, approximately 2300 hydrogen trucks per day could run on this volume of green hydrogen as the market for trucks on hydrogen develops.

Read the article online at: https://www.energyglobal.com/other-renewables/11052020/shell-nederland-and-eneco-participate-in-wind-tender/