TICKER (week 30): What’s also important…

Norway: Consortium receives 13,5 million euros in funding for H2 ferry + + + Duisburg: Habeck hands over funding notice for DRI technology to Thyssenkrupp + + + Research: Zinc batteries produce hydrogen + + + Hamburg: EU Commission approves Brunsbüttel LNG terminal + + + Berlin: Starting signal for the north-south power line “Suedlink” + + + Finland: Hydrogen Pro makes FEED for 200 MW hydrogen factory + + + Cuxhaven: PNE AG and SET Select Energy want to produce e-fuels in South Africa + + + Duisburg: 12 H2 buses from Solaris + + + USA: Nel receives $5,6 million from the Department of Defense + + + DISCOUNT promotion: Your ADVERTISING on the PtX portal

A selection of PtX topics summarized at the end of the week

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A consortium with 14 partners from seven European countries will receive funding of 13,5 million euros from the EU “Horizon Europe” program to develop a fuel cell-powered ferry. The project aims to build a 35 meter long ship with a capacity of 300 passengers. The ferry is scheduled to be used in southern Europe from 2030. The client was not named. The project application was submitted in April 2023. “We expect the process of preparing the grant agreement to be completed later this year and the project to start in January 2024,” said Fredrik Aarskog, director of business development at Norwegian fuel cell supplier Teco 2030.

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Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck symbolically presented Thyssenkrupp Steel Europe AG with a funding decision of around two billion euros for the “tkH2Steel” decarbonization project in Duisburg. The state of North Rhine-Westphalia contributes 700 million euros to the total funding, the federal government covers the rest. How berichtet, the EU Commission recently granted state aid approval for the funding. The steel company wants to convert its blast furnaces to run on hydrogen. The core of the concept is the integration of a hydrogen-capable direct reduction plant (DRI) of iron with two melters and a production capacity of 2,5 million tons per year (which becomes 2,3 million tons of pig iron). Commissioning is scheduled to take place from the end of 2026.

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A consortium led by the Berlin Fraunhofer Institute for Reliability and Microintegration IZM is working on a zinc battery that produces hydrogen when discharged. Initial tests showed an efficiency of 50 percent for electricity storage and 80 percent for hydrogen production with a predicted lifespan of ten years, according to the scientists. With the project “Zn-H2” The aim is to develop a battery that is “explicitly suitable for long-term storage”. Unlike conventional lithium batteries, zinc storage batteries are significantly cheaper, use readily available raw materials (steel, zinc, potassium hydroxide) and are recyclable. “During charging, water in the battery oxidizes to oxygen and at the same time zinc oxide is reduced to metallic zinc. When the storage cell is discharged as needed, the zinc is converted back into zinc oxide. The water is in turn reduced so that hydrogen is produced and released,” says Robert Hahn from Fraunhofer IZM. “Ultimately, electrically rechargeable hydrogen storage devices should be developed that store energy in the form of metallic zinc and provide electricity and hydrogen.” A demonstrator is to be built by the end of the year, the operation of which will be researched in a test stand. The project, which runs until September 2025, is funded by the federal government with an undisclosed amount.

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The European Commission has approved state aid for the Brunsbüttel liquid gas terminal project by KfW (on behalf of the federal government), Gasunie and RWE. The Bus Terminal is expected to regasify around ten billion cubic meters of liquefied natural gas (LNG) annually from the end of 2026 / beginning of 2027 and feed it into the German network. According to the information, the investment volume totals around 1,3 billion euros and will be borne by the three shareholders according to their shares (KfW 50 percent, Gasunie 40 percent, RWE 10 percent). According to EU approval, federal funding amounts to 40 million euros. The land-based LNG terminal replaces the previous floating storage and regasification facility (FSRU). The plant should be used for hydrogen or its derivatives by 2044 at the latest.

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Economics Minister Robert Habeck, together with the transmission system operator TransnetBW, gave the starting signal for the construction of the first converter for the Suedlink direct current line. As one of four converters, the system in Leingarten, Baden-Württemberg, is intended to convert direct current coming from the north into alternating current. The electricity is then routed to consumers via the alternating current network. In the next two decades, says Habeck, “thousands of kilometers of additional power grids” will be needed. These would have to be planned, approved and built quickly. Leingarten is the southern end of the approximately 700 kilometer long direct current connection between Brunsbüttel in Schleswig-Holstein and Großgartach in Baden-Württemberg. From 2028, Suedlink will transport electricity from the windy north to consumption centers in southern Germany. To achieve this, around 119 kilometers of route would be built in 14.000 projects. Of these, only around 2.000 kilometers are in operation and 1.500 are currently under construction. The rest are subject to various approval procedures.

An overview of the current status of the expansion of the transmission networks (July 2023) is available free of charge PDF (34 pages).

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The Norwegian technology company Hydrogen Pro AS creates a planning study (Front-end Engineering Design, FEED) for the construction of a hydrogen factory in Finland. According to the information, the output is 200 megawatts and the location is Kristinestad. The client Koppö Energia is a joint venture between the German asset management company Prime Capital and CPC Finland, a subsidiary of the project developer CPC Germany. The FEED includes a complete system including Hydrogen Pro's high pressure alkaline electrolyzer technology. The company is working with the Austrian mechanical engineering group Andritz AG. Both announced their strategic partnership in April of this year. This includes, among other things, cooperation in the assembly of electrolyzers for the European market as well as a possible expansion of production.

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The Cuxhaveners PNE AG and the energy trader SET Select Energy GmbH want to produce e-fuels in South Africa. The companies in Hamburg have signed a corresponding declaration of intent. The project on the west coast of the country is expected to generate up to 500.000 tons of e-fuels per year, which are obtained from green hydrogen. The electrolyser, with a nominal output of one gigawatt, will be operated directly and without detours using energy from wind farms and photovoltaic systems, as the project location “does not have a large network capacity”. The necessary water will be taken from the sea and desalinated. SET and the South African PNE subsidiary WKN Windcurrent are currently reviewing the logistics and availability of raw materials and products.

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Duisburger Verkehrsgesellschaft AG (DVG) has signed up with the Polish vehicle manufacturer Solaris 25 Urbino hydrogen buses were ordered, eleven of which were in the 12-meter version and 14 articulated buses in the 18-meter version. Delivery of the “Urbino 12” is planned for 2024 and the “Urbino 18” for mid-2025. DVG wants to make its fleet completely emission-free by 2030. The Urbino 12 is operated with 70 kilowatt fuel cells, the cells of the Urbino 18 have an output of 100 kilowatts. The buses have a drive power of 160 or 240 kilowatts. There are also batteries on board that serve as additional electrical energy storage. Urbino hydrogen buses have so far been ordered by customers from Austria, France, Spain, the Netherlands, Germany, Poland, Slovakia, Switzerland, Sweden and Italy.

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Nel Hydrogen US, a subsidiary of Norway's Nel ASA, has received additional funding of $5,6 million (€5,06 million) from the US Department of Defense (DoD) to accelerate the development of its PEM electrolyzers. The same amount was already available when the 19-month project was launched in November 2022. The company is working with the Engineer Research and Development Center - Construction Engineering Research Laboratory (ERDC-CERL) to develop cost-effective hydrogen storage. The ERDC conducts research for the U.S. military and other federal, state and local agencies in seven laboratories in four states.

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DISCOUNT promotion: Your ADVERTISING on the PtX portal

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Photos
iStock / © Danil Melekhin