Demonstrating Offshore Production of Green Hydrogen

The European Commission’s “Strategy to Harness the Potential of Offshore Renewable Energy for a Climate Neutral Future”^[1] expects renewable energy projects to become increasingly important in most sea basins in Europe, including innovative projects such as offshore hydrogen production. Hydrogen may be produced offshore by achieving an association between wind turbines and electrolysers by various approaches. These include retrofitting an electrolyser to an existing oil & gas platform, building a renewable hydrogen production hub on a man-made island, building a new platform close to a wind farm, or integrating the electrolyser and wind turbine into one offshore assembly. The electricity may be supplied via a private wire, a grid connection, or off-grid. Moreover, offshore produced hydrogen may be exported via existing repurposed or new pipelines (gas blended or pure hydrogen) or by dedicated ships; and a platform may be used for grid balancing and for refuelling ships offshore.

This topic calls for a flagship project demonstration at multi-MW scale, >5MW, of the feasibility of offshore renewable hydrogen production. This may be achieved by either re-using existing offshore electricity/oil/gas infrastructure or using new infrastructure, to export energy as hydrogen rather than electricity and so support the greater integration of renewable power sources into the energy system. It is expected that the electrolyser operation will closely follow the wind power generation profile. This will be one of the first worldwide demonstrations of an offshore multi-MW system integration for renewable hydrogen production and export/use.

Project results are expected to contribute to all of the following outcomes:

• Achievement of a step change regarding experience with the additional safety aspects of hydrogen production offshore and export/use, de-risking future projects and investments;
• Determination of the long-term performance of an offshore electrolyser in terms of integration capabilities, efficiencies, systems balancing, performance degradation, corrosion management and operational costs;
• Evaluation and demonstration of operational, inspection and maintenance requirements of offshore electrolysis process;
• Building upon existing experience and research into suitable offshore renewable hydrogen infrastructures and expanding this knowledge;
• Enabling further roll-out of offshore renewable hydrogen production and export/use;
• Acting as a stepping stone for dedicated offshore electrolysis coupled with windfarms, transporting renewable energy as renewable hydrogen, or the offshore use of renewable hydrogen;
• Provide relevant experience to retrofitting existing electricity/oil/gas offshore infrastructure demonstrating their feasibility and cost competitiveness in the long run.

Proposals should aim to improve understanding of the technical, economic, regulatory and operational benefits and hurdles of producing and exporting offshore renewable hydrogen with direct connection to offshore windfarms.

Project results are expected to contribute to all of the following objectives of the Clean Hydrogen JU SRIA:

• AEL, Electricity consumption @ nominal capacity( kWh/kg) 49, Degradation (%/1,000h) 0.11, Hot idle ramp time (sec) 30, Cold start ramp time (sec) 900;
• PEMEL, Electricity consumption @ nominal capacity( kWh/kg) 52, Degradation (%/1,000h) 0.15, Hot idle ramp time (sec) 1, Cold start ramp time (sec) 10.

This Innovation Action flagship^[2] topic will aim to demonstrate offshore production and export/use of hydrogen as a first multi-MW step towards large-scale offshore renewable hydrogen production. The scope covers process design, engineering, construction, procurement, integration with offshore infrastructure and operation of a >5MW electrolysis system at an offshore setting. This can include the supply of renewable electricity, water at the required specification as well as cooling, drying, compression, storages, pipelines and other auxiliaries required to convey and utilise the hydrogen. Accordingly, the project will incur substantial integration costs, both upstream and downstream of the electrolyser, in addition to the costs of the offshore electrolyser itself.

Proposals should address the following:

• Deployment of a system that is designed to be remotely controlled, monitored and autonomously operated to minimise operational costs, while also allowing ready access for essential maintenance purposes;
• Evaluation of the operational, inspection and maintenance requirements of offshore electrolysis systems;
• Operation of the offshore electrolyser and hydrogen export/storage/use for two complete seasonal cycles (24 months). Projects should record all relevant operating data (e.g.: electricity input, hydrogen production and export, system degradation, system fault/trips and root cause analysis) to allow the feasibility of offshore renewable electrolysis to be fully assessed;
• Determination of the performance of the offshore electrolyser in terms of efficiency, performance degradation, operational and maintenance costs;
• If relevant to the electrolyser site, an assessment of economic impact of re-using existing offshore infrastructure compared with developing new offshore infrastructure. KPIs regarding accommodation ratios (MW/m²), cost of installed production (€/MW), etc, shall be defined as appropriate in the proposals to build the assessment;
• A techno-economic comparison of the chosen approach to offshore hydrogen production and transport by pipeline with an otherwise similar approach on land that is based on onshore wind power;
• Assessment of the efficient use of the available renewable energy and of the best control strategies to optimise the plant performances based on the measured process operation data. For this purpose, proposals shall define KPIs regarding availability, efficiency, LCOH, etc;
• Assessment of the environmental impact in terms of avoided CO₂ emissions resulting from the utilisation of the renewable hydrogen produced offshore. A preliminary estimation of the CO₂ avoided emission is expected already in the proposal;
• Describe how learnings will be communicated and dissemination will occur beyond the consortium, including regions in Europe with significant potential for offshore renewable hydrogen production.

The offshore conditions, stringent safety requirements, securing a renewable electricity supply, EPC requirements, and the difficult accessibility makes this call very challenging compared with land-based deployments of electrolysers in the electricity grid. Hence to address adequately the challenges of this project, the consortium should assess:

• Technical and specific hydrogen expertise for the design, provision, integration, safety and operation of the offshore electrolysis process devices and associated hydrogen export/use;
• The necessary contractual and commercial expertise to market the hydrogen;
• The end-use of the produced and exported hydrogen;
• The potential sustainability of the deployed renewable production plant beyond the demonstration phase;
• Obtaining the necessary permitting and regulatory approvals as required for the timeframe of the project;
• Legal, safety and regulatory expertise related.

Proposals are expected to demonstrate important additional technological advancement compared to the FCH JU project OYSTER^[3].

This topic encourages the deployment of sustainable transportation of hydrogen methods by soliciting the planning of «medium range and backbone transmission infrastructures» in line with the “Hydrogen Strategy for a Climate Neutral Europe^[4]”. In addition, it is important that the offshore production of hydrogen conforms with Europe’s general commitment to achieving and maintaining clean and healthy oceans by addressing the operation, recyclability, recovery and re-use of offshore electrolysers^[5].

The following costs are considered to be eligible for funding: the design, development, procurement, integration and installation of the offshore electrolyser and its water supply; the electrolyser’s electricity connection; the auxiliary systems (including hydrogen storage and export infrastructure); the commissioning, operation and maintenance of the deployed system for the demonstration phase. Costs associated with offshore infrastructure acquisition or retrofitting, buying electricity and electricity grid levies for the demonstration phase are not eligible.

Applicants should be able to demonstrate the compatibility of their proposal with a wider perimeter, such as renewable electricity production, export/use means and/or platform infrastructure. Additional funding streams and match funding are encouraged.

This topic is expected to contribute to EU competitiveness and industrial leadership by supporting a European value chain for hydrogen and fuel cell systems and components.

Proposals should provide a preliminary draft on ‘hydrogen safety planning and management’ at the project level, which will be further updated during project implementation.

It is expected that Guarantees of origin (GOs) will be used to prove the renewable character of the hydrogen that is produced. In this respect consortium may seek out the issuance and subsequent cancellation of GOs from the relevant Member State issuing body and if that is not yet available the consortium may proceed with the issuance and cancellation of non-governmental certificates (e.g CertifHy^[6]).

Activities developing test protocols and procedures for the performance and durability assessment of electrolysers and fuel cell components proposals should foresee a collaboration mechanism with JRC (see section 2.2.4.3 "Collaboration with JRC"), in order to support EU-wide harmonisation. Test activities should adopt the already published EU harmonised testing protocols to benchmark performance and quantify progress at programme level.

Activities are expected to start at TRL 5 and achieve TRL 7 by the end of the project.

At least one partner in the consortium must be a member of either Hydrogen Europe or Hydrogen Europe Research.

The conditions related to this topic are provided in the chapter 2.2.3.2 of the Clean Hydrogen JU 2022 Annual Work Plan and in the General Annexes to the Horizon Europe Work Programme 2021–2022 which apply mutatis mutandis.

[1]https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:52020DC0741&from=EN

[2]For definition of flagship see section 5.3. of the Clean Hydrogen JU Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda 2021 – 2027

[3]https://www.clean-hydrogen.europa.eu/projects-repository_en

[4]https://ec.europa.eu/energy/sites/ener/files/hydrogen_strategy.pdf

[5]

[6]https://www.certifhy.eu/