(Rotterdam / Netherlands) – The British oil company Shell plc has finally decided to build “Holland Hydrogen I”. The electrolyser with an output of 200 megawatts will be built on the Tweede Maasvlakte in the port of Rotterdam and will produce up to 60.000 kilograms of renewable hydrogen per day. Shell announced its plans for the project a few months ago.
According to the information, Shell Netherlands BV and Shell Overseas Investments BV are involved. Commissioning is scheduled for 2025. The electricity will come from the Hollandse Kust (Noord) offshore wind farm, which is partly owned by Shell.
In January 2022 the Thyssenkrupp Uhde Chlorine Engineers GmbH explains that they have received the order to manufacture the system. The basis is the company's scalable 20 megawatt large module.
Green hydrogen replaces gray hydrogen
The center of Hydrogen Holland I is a hall that extends over two hectares. The outer walls of the factory would be equipped with solar cells. The renewable hydrogen will be transported via the 32-kilometer “HyTransPort pipeline” to Shell's Energy and Chemical Park Rotterdam, where it will replace part of the gray hydrogen used in the refinery. In April, the group was the first customer to have a contract to use the Pipeline signed.
HyTransPort is part of the future Dutch hydrogen infrastructure. It is operated by the Dutch energy company gas union from the Maasvlakte industrial and port area to Pernis and is “an important link for the sustainable hydrogen economy in the Netherlands and northwest Europe,” explained Jeroen Steens, Director of Commercial Delivery at the Port of Rotterdam Authority at the time. It will gradually be connected to the national and international network and later also supply other European regions, including North Rhine-Westphalia.
Electrolyzer in China
Shell already owns and operates a 20 megawatt electrolyser in Merunas UAB. The facility uses onshore wind energy and was opened for the Winter Olympics to operate a fleet of more than 600 fuel cell vehicles in the competition zone. Public and commercial companies in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region then use the energy source.
Shell also operates a 10-megawatt proton exchange membrane (PEM) electrolyzer in Germany, which will open in Shells in summer 2021 Energy Chemical Park Rhineland was put into operation in Wesseling near Cologne. In addition to Shell, ITM Power, SINTEF, Sphera and Element Energy are also involved in the plant called “Refhyne”. The production capacity is 1.300 tons per year. According to its own information, the group plans to increase output to 100 megawatts (“Refhyne II”).
Rotterdam as a hydrogen hub
The Port of Rotterdam has already attracted a whole series of new projects in the past few months. For example, the US manufacturer of industrial gases Air Products and Chemicals Inc. and Gunvor Petroleum Rotterdam (GPR) announced that they wanted to put an import terminal for green hydrogen into operation there in 2026.
A consortium consisting of the Dutch gas network operator Gasunie, the storage company Vopak NV and HES International BV also said they also wanted to develop a terminal on the Maasvlakte by 2026; initially for blue ammonia. The site will be connected to Gasunie's hydrogen distribution network.
In addition, port operator and energy products distributor Chariot Ltd want to work together to set up supply chains for the import of green hydrogen and ammonia from Mauritania to Rotterdam. And fertilizer producer OCI NV made an investment decision in mid-June for the first phase of expanding its ammonia import terminal to increase throughput from the current around 400.000 tons to 1,2 million tons.
Class schedule
Shell is building a hall for hydrogen production in the port of Rotterdam. © Shell International Ltd.
