The race to offshore hydrogen production

Producing hydrogen offshore has been at the forefront of Lhyfe’s ambitions since it was formed in 2017. In 2021, the company started to produce its green hydrogen onshore, proving that it was possible to produce green and renewable hydrogen from seawater at sites directly connected to renewable energy sources. Offshore wind farms are now developing fast, and producing very large quantities of hydrogen at sea remains at the forefront of the company’s ambitions.

The world’s first offshore renewable hydrogen production pilot enters its second phase of experimentation

In September 2022, Lhyfe inaugurated its offshore renewable green hydrogen production demonstrator. A world first for the industry, proving that it is feasible to produce offshore green hydrogen.

The Sealhyfe production unit was installed on the WAVEGEM wave energy plat-form engineered by Geps Techno. The electrolyser for the system was supplied and optimised for these exceptional operating conditions by Plug Power. Sealhyfe has the capacity to produce up to 400 kg of renewable green hydrogen a day, equivalent to 1 MW of power.

During a first seven-month experimentation phase, Sealhyfe produced its first tonnes of renewable green hydrogen while moored at quay. While the system operated automatically, in the most extreme of conditions – on a floating platform – an extensive range of tests were run. Endurance, full-remote capabilities, maintenance-free operations, and peak production with high pan and tilt of the platform were trialled, ensuring that the gas produced met the highest quality, complying with automotive purity standards.

In June 2023, Sealhyfe was towed to Centrale Nantes’ SEM-REV offshore testing hub operated by the OPEN-C Foundation, about 20 km off the coast of Le Croisic. Here, the floating device is supplied with electricity from the pioneering floating wind turbine – FLOATGEN (engineered and operated by BW Ideol) – installed within the offshore test site in 2018 and still unique in France today.

The results collected during the quay trial period will be used as a benchmark to compare with the behaviour of the system in real conditions at sea, thanks to the data which is currently being gathered at the SEM-REV test site.

These tests are expected to provide a high level of confidence in Sealhyfe so that it can offer a solution to several major and unprecedented challenges, including:

• Performing all stages of hydrogen production at sea, i.e. converting the electrical voltage from the floating wind turbine, pumping, desalinating and purifying the sea-water, and breaking the water molecules via electrolysis to obtain renewable green hydrogen.
• Managing the effects of the platform’s motion on the system: list, accelerations, swinging movements, etc.
• Enduring environmental stress: Sealhyfe will have to survive the premature ageing of its parts (corrosion, impacts, temperature variations, etc.).
• Operating in an isolated environment: the platform must operate automatically, without the physical intervention of an operator, except for scheduled maintenance periods which have been optimally integrated from the design phase.

Next step: a 10 MW commercial demonstrator at European scale

The logical next move for Sealhyfe is to ramp up to a 10 MW project and eventually cater for projects of several hundred megawatts. In this perspective, Lhyfe has proposed a renewable hydrogen production solution as part of a European call for projects, the HOPE project. This initiative – in partnership with Alfa Laval (Denmark), CEA (France), DWR (Germany), Element Energy (France), EDP (Portugal), Frames (Netherlands), POM (Belgium), and Strohm (Netherlands), and financed by the Euro-pean programme Clean Hydrogen Partnership – will create synergies and capitalise on the know-how of each of the companies involved, in order to advance the offshore hydrogen production industry, in which everything remains to be done.

This first commercial demonstrator will integrate all the offshore-specific components. In addition to increasing Sealhyfe’s production capacity tenfold, an export pipe-line will be installed between the platform, located about 1 km off the coast, and the compression and distribution base located in the port area of Ostend in Belgium, in order to supply local customers with green hydrogen. The structure hosting the production unit will be a self-elevating (jack-up) barge acquired second hand, demonstrating that it is possible to shift infrastructures previously used for oil and gas and give them a second life for the production of greener energy, while helping to reduce costs and lead time on this project. As the project will last at least five years, this unit will have to meet the criteria of durability and maintainability in an offshore environment in order to guarantee optimal production over the entire project lifespan.

Enjoyed what you've read so far? Read the full article and the rest of the Autumn issue of Energy Global by following the link or below, or why not register today for free!

For more news and technical articles from the global renewable industry, read the latest issue of Energy Global magazine.

Energy Global's Autumn 2023 issue

The Autumn 2023 issue of Energy Global hosts an array of technical articles focusing on green hydrogen, wind installation technology, blade monitoring solutions, and more. This issue also features a regional report looking at some key renewables projects in Australia.

Read the article online at: https://www.energyglobal.com/special-reports/23112023/the-race-to-offshore-hydrogen-production/