(Lingen) – The Essen-based RWE AG wants to produce green hydrogen in Lingen, Lower Saxony. The construction of one Pilot plant As reported, the energy company announced in May last year.
Nine months after the groundbreaking ceremony, eight modules of a pressure alkaline electrolyser from the Dresden manufacturer Sunfire GmbH have now reached the construction site on the site of the gas power plant in Emsland, reports RWE. The components, each weighing 15 tons, are assembled there to form two “stacks” almost ten meters long with a cumulative output of ten megawatts. In the coming weeks, technicians will install the system within the pilot plant and integrate it into the infrastructure of the gas power plant.
Linde also supplies electrolyzers
RWE wants to test two electrolysis technologies there under industrial conditions. The British manufacturer of industrial gases Linde plc also received an order. There, RWE ordered a proton exchange membrane electrolyzer (PEM) with an output of four megawatts. This should be delivered to the neighboring building “shortly”.
Sketch of the planned pilot plant in Lingen. © RWE
The entire system is expected to go into operation in the fall of this year. Using electricity from renewable energy sources, it can generate up to 290 kilograms of green hydrogen per hour, which is fed into a public hydrogen network or mixed with natural gas as a climate-neutral fuel for turbines in the gas power plant. RWE and the Japanese turbine manufacturer Kawasaki Heavy Industries plan to put a hydrogen-capable gas turbine into operation in Lingen by 2024 in order to test the reconversion of hydrogen into electricity.
“After commissioning, the plant in Lingen will help us to gain experience with two technologies for the later operation of large electrolyzers,” says Sopna Sury, COO Hydrogen RWE Generation SE. The state of Lower Saxony is funding the project with eight million euros.
300 megawatts of electrolysis output by 2026
A few meters away from the pilot plant, the company plans to “GET H2The construction of a large-scale plant with an electrolyzer output of a total of 2026 megawatts by 300. The aim is to collect “important findings on the transport and storage of hydrogen” using a test pipeline. A consortium of industry and science is planning an approximately 130-kilometer-long pipeline network from Lingen to Gelsenkirchen.
In February, RWE announced that it had already ordered two 100-megawatt proton exchange membrane electrolyzers (PEM) from the plant manufacturer Linde Engineering. The energy company plans to put the first of the two systems into operation in Emsland next year. The second system is scheduled to start up a year later.
Photos
Sunfire's pressurized alkali plant is one of two types of electrolysis that RWE wants to test. The entire system with an output of 14 megawatts is scheduled to go into operation in the fall © RWE
