This note is drawing the vision of Offshore Wind Hydrogen Stations. This is something that could potentially become our future energy stations far inside the seas. This vision is combining two of the most trendy business models, Offshore Wind and Green Hydrogen Production. Having this combination together enables higher feasibility and bankability while eliminating their weak points.
Offshore Wind market is growing rapidly. It is expected to reach USD 129 billion by 2030, to grow at a CAGR of 18.82% from now [1]. The Gigawatt scale of Offshore Wind Energy projects illustrates their potential as a world-class energy source that can not be ignored.
On the other hand, Green Hydrogen is also in the same boat. It is considered as one of the most trending renewable energy mediums. The market size is expected to grow from $2.14bn last year to $135.73bn by 2031 — a “phenomenal” compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 51.6% [2]. Hydrogen is definitely the trend of the day as the fuel of the future, and yes there is a lot of buzz around it. In the next section below, we will try to clarify what is Green Hydrogen & why is it so important. Why at this point in time it is not where it should be and what do we need to make a fully “Green” alternative to fossil fuels.
Green Hydrogen vs. Blue or Gray
Probably here & there you have heard a lot about different colors attached to the word Hydrogen, but why is that and what do you need to turn them to Green? The simple answer is that the color label is simply labeled due to the production method and the energy used to produce the Hydrogen fuel cells. Some time back we had an article on the topic of different methods of Hydrogen production which dives into the discussion. But to put it very simple you need renewable energy to produce Green Hydrogen.
| Type of Hydrogen | Energy type used in Production |
| Green Hydrogen | Renewable Energy Sources (Wind, Solar, Hydro, etc) |
| Blue Hydrogen | Fossil Fuels + Carbon Capture & Storage (CCS) |
| Grey Hydrogen | Fossil Fuels |
IRENA tells us that “As at the end of 2021, almost 47% of the global hydrogen production is from natural gas, 27% from coal, 22% from oil (as a by-product) and only around 4% comes from electrolysis. Electricity had a global average renewable share of about 33% in 2021, which means that only about 1% of global hydrogen output is produced with renewable energy” [3]. This shows how dramatic is the situation & there is only one way to turn this around, if we intend to count on H2 as a renewable fuel of the future.
Offshore Wind & Hydrogen, the natural pair
All that we explained in the previous section, tells you that if you want Green Hydrogen, you would need a renewable source of energy and probably A LOT of it. Well, that’s a BINGO because Offshore Wind Farms, are a Gigawatt scale world-class energy source and are a suitable candidate for this purpose. What else could be a bankable solution to produce H2? Production of hydrogen from water (H2O) !!! Yet another BINGO, offshore wind farms are placed in the sea where potentially sea water could be utilized for such a purpose (through treatment).
Offshore Wind farms have the potential to turn the table around for Green Hydrogen. They are placed in the middle of the sea and they can have a power capacity of up to several GW of electrical energy. As they are in the sea, they also do have natural access to an unlimited supply of water.
Power + Water + Electrolyser technology means the unlimited capacity to produce H2 and Hydrogen Fuel Cells that can e.g. be stored in H2 tanks in the sea bed, as the deep purple project from Norway suggests (see image below) or be transported by ships/pipelines to wherever they are needed.
What makes this even more attractive idea is that a big portion of the initial CAPEX (investments) in the Offshore Wind Farm projects is spent on the transition of generated power back to the land where it can be utilized (AC or DC projects). However with Offshore Wind Hydrogen Stations, one can simply use the produced wind energy “locally” and save all that investment. In addition, location-wise, the offshore wind farms could be potentially be placed in the middle of nowhere, without any access to connect them to shore !!!
Advantages of Offshore Wind Hydrogen Stations
So let’s review the key points here:
- Local availability of high amounts of power (18 MW per Wind Turbine Generator, GigaWatt scale Wind farms)
- Wind availability is not an issue for the Grid anymore (produce H2 when wind is blowing)
- Unlimited amount of water supply from sea for Hydrogen production
- Off Grid Solution, where no transition of power is required (lower CAPEX & OPEX)
- Floating Wind Farms can be located even further in the sea, as transiton is not an issue any more
- Any others? Please comments with your ideas
Disadvantages of Offshore Wind Hydrogen Stations
- Sea water can not be directly used to produce H2 and needs to be treated
- Transportation of the fuel cells could be a logistic issue, which can be resolved with tanker ships or pipelines back to shore
- Any others? Please comments with your ideas
Applications of this vision
Due to the facts that we went through here, Hydrogen is already welcomed in various applications such as
- Automobile Industry
Hyundai Nexo SUV (this is a reality per today and my friend is an extremely happy owner) and Toyota Mirai are already available commercially in the market [4] - Logistics
From busses to trucks, ships and even planes are being modified to fit the fuel cells technology instead of fossil fuels. In a fact, Airbus & Boeing have prototypes and are working on commercial plans with Hydrogen as a fuel [5]. - Industry & much more
Hydrogen is being used and planned for wider use as we speak. The industry is counting on the technology so much that even Offshore Oil & Gas production sector is counting on it to make wind power more reliable for Green Oil production in the North Sea. See our article on Deep Purple project.
Did you know?
Wind Edition publishes this trending top 10 Wind Turbine Generators article quarterly. In addition to that, we also have an interactive map of all major offshore wind farms globally.
our other website solaredition.com also publishes the best solar panels monthly since 2019. In addition to this, we also publish a top 10 72 cells solar panels for industrial scale every quarterly (Q1,2,3,4).
References
[1] Offshore Wind Energy Market, URL: https://www.precedenceresearch.com/offshore-wind-energy-market
[2] Global green hydrogen market to grow by more than 6,000% by 2031, says new study, URL: https://www.rechargenews.com/energy-transition/global-green-hydrogen-market-to-grow-by-more-than-6-000-by-2031-says-new-study/2-1-1271676
[3] IRENA, Hydrogen, URL: https://www.irena.org/Energy-Transition/Technology/Hydrogen#:~:text=Electricity%20had%20a%20global%20average,is%20produced%20with%20renewable%20energy.
[4] Wikipedia, Hydrogen Vehicles, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_vehicle
[5] Airbus ZEROe, URL: https://www.airbus.com/en/innovation/zero-emission/hydrogen/zeroe
[6] Wind Edition, What is Green Hydrogen? https://www.windedition.com/what-is-green-hydrogen/
