Siemens commissions plant in Germany
Siemens logo in Germany. The industrial giant says the country’s newly commissioned green hydrogen plant will use wind and solar power from the Wunsiedel Energy Park.
Daniel Karmann | Photo Alliance | Getty Images
The green hydrogen plant, said to be one of the largest in Germany, is open and industrial giant Siemens says it will produce 1,350 tons of hydrogen every year.
Siemens said in a statement on Wednesday that the facility will use wind and solar energy from the Wunsiedel energy park in Upper Franconia.
Hydrogen will be produced using an 8.75 megawatt electrolyzer. Siemens said that hydrogen will be mainly used “at industrial and commercial enterprises in the region, as well as in road transport.”
After commissioning, Siemens reported that the plant had been handed over to operator WUN H2. Siemens Financial Services owns a 45% stake in WUN H2. The utility companies Riessner Gase and Stadtwerke Wunsiedel hold 45% and 10% shares respectively.
“Negotiations on expanding the station’s capacity to 17.5 megawatts are already underway,” Siemens said.
Described by the International Energy Agency as a “universal energy carrier”, hydrogen has a wide range of applications and can be used in a wide variety of industries.
It can be made in several ways. One method involves the use of electrolysis, in which water is split by an electric current into oxygen and hydrogen.
If the electricity used in this process comes from a renewable source such as wind or solar, then some refer to it as “green” or “renewable” hydrogen. Today, the vast majority of hydrogen production is based on fossil fuels.
“Tipping point for Europe”
The Siemens announcement came on the same day that European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen expressed her support for hydrogen in her address to Congress.
In comments translated on the Commission’s website, von der Leyen said that “hydrogen could be a game changer for Europe. We need to move our hydrogen economy from niche to scale.”
In her speech, von der Leyen also mentioned the “target of producing ten million tons of renewable hydrogen in the EU every year by 2030.”
“To achieve this, we must create a market maker for hydrogen to close the investment gap and link future supply and demand,” she said.
To this end, the EU’s von der Leyen has also announced the creation of the European Hydrogen Bank. It is hoped that this will allow 3 billion euros ($2.99 billion) to be invested in support of the future hydrogen market.
Over the past few years, a number of multinational companies have attempted to set a benchmark in the clean hydrogen sector. Inside Germany itself, the oil and gas giant Last year, Shell announced that a 10 MW electrolytic cell had been put into operation.
In July 2022, it was announced that plans to build a large hydrogen plant in the Netherlands would proceed after a final investment decision by Shell’s subsidiaries.
At the time, Shell said in a statement that the Holland Hydrogen I facility will become “Europe’s largest renewable hydrogen plant” when it becomes operational in 2025.
According to the company, the 200 MW electrolyzer will be located at the Port of Rotterdam, Europe’s largest seaport, producing up to 60,000 kg of renewable hydrogen every day.
In June of this year, another major oil and gas company, BP, said it had agreed to acquire a 40.5% stake in the Asian Renewable Energy Center, a massive project planned for Australia.
BP said it would be the operator of the development, adding that it had “the potential to become one of the largest renewable energy and green hydrogen hubs in the world.”
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