(Heligoland) – The “AquaPortus” hydrogen project has collapsed. The aim was to store the green hydrogen produced offshore in an electrolysis plant on the offshore island of Heligoland in a hydrogenation plant into a liquid organic hydrogen carrier (LOHC) and transport it to the mainland via the port of Hamburg. The thermal energy from the hydrogenation process on Helgoland should have been used for part of the island's heat supply.
Wind power capacities too low
According to the association However, AquaVentus has become apparent over the last year 
that the originally planned quantities of hydrogen were “out of sync” with the quantities actually available. Initially, “only one wind turbine with a corresponding electrolysis unit can be built in the area of the wind farms off Helgoland instead of two or three”.
The amounts of hydrogen that would arrive on Helgoland “have changed contrary to the original ones 
Destinations would be greatly reduced, so there would not be enough hydrogen available for onward transport towards the mainland,” said Siying Huang, project manager at Hydrogenious LOHC Technologies. The background to the lack of opportunities to generate sufficient wind energy was not mentioned.
Regardless of the project changes, research and development work continued 
TransHyDE project Helgoland continues as planned until 2025. “We are convinced that LOHC technology has great potential and will soon take an important place in the supply of green hydrogen,” said Christoph Tewis, project manager of AquaPortus and TransHyDE Helgoland, which is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, to develop hydrogen transport technologies.
AquaCore to supply Heligoland
As a follow-up project to the project that has now been shelved, “AquaCore” is being launched as a strategic further development. The wind turbine with electrolysis unit, which is being built under the umbrella project called AquaPrimus, will then deliver green hydrogen produced offshore for direct local use to the island.
The hydrogen will be used to generate heat and fed into the district heating network. “With this variant, the heat requirement could be completely covered with green hydrogen. At this point, heating oil would be a thing of the past,” says VBH managing director Kay Martens. The Helgoland utilities (VBH) and the municipality are in charge, with the support of Schleswig-Holstein Netz AG. Implementation should take place by 2026.
The Aqua Projects
The basis and background of the entire project is the project AquaVentus. A consortium led by the energy company RWE has set itself the goal of “operating electrolysers installed at sea on an industrial scale using electricity from offshore wind turbines”. Accordingly, plants with a total volume of ten gigawatts that will generate up to one million tons of green hydrogen are planned in the North Sea by 2035.
To develop the future hydrogen park, a number of consortia formed sub-projects along the entire value chain. At AquaVentus the following are interconnected:
- AquaPrimus / AquaPortus / AquaCore Under the title AquaPrimus, hydrogen is generated off the coast of Heligoland using wind power and transported to the island via pipeline. From there, the energy source was bound to be shipped to Hamburg in LOHC (AquaPortus). In the replacement project that has now been announced, the hydrogen remains for local use on Heligoland (AquaCore).
- AquaDuctus In this initiative, the transmission system operators Gascade and Gasunie as well as the energy companies RWE and Shell are combining their activities for the development, construction and operation of an offshoreCollection pipeline, which will transport green hydrogen from the North Sea directly to consumers on the mainland.
- AquaSector It works as a “feasibility study” for the 10-GW AquaVentus vision AquaSector-Large facility in operation. The merger of RWE, Shell, Gasunie and Equinor is intended to “serve as a pioneer in solving technical challenges and thus pave the way for offshore hydrogen projects on a gigawatt scale.” The plan is to install wind turbines with an output of 300 megawatts in order to produce up to 20.000 tons of green hydrogen per year at sea. This will then be brought ashore in the central AquaDuctus collection pipeline.
- AquaCampus The research project examines materials and coatings to protect surfaces in a test field measuring three square kilometers and 45 meters deep. New technologies for use in a maritime environment are also being tested in Helgoland's southern harbor - from materials, construction methods and joining techniques to sensors and complete methods and procedures. Underwater robots and vehicles could also prove their performance and reliability under real conditions, according to the support association's website.
- AquaNavis This is about researching and testing green hydrogen as a fuel. As part of three pilot projects, three types of ships are to be put into operation in Heligoland traffic by 2025: offshore service ships (CTV, Crew Transfer Vessels), a cargo ship to supply the island and an island ferry that carries passengers between Heligoland and the neighboring dune.
Those involved have chosen the form of a support association based on Heligoland as the umbrella for the entire project. The AquaVentus initiative includes more than 90 international companies, research institutes and organizations. The first chairman is Heligoland's mayor Jörg Singer.
Photo above
Heligoland is to receive a hydrogen-based district heating network. In a few years, visitors to the offshore dune could travel across in hydrogen-powered passenger boats. © Andreas Lohse
Photos middle (from top to bottom)
AquaVentus is to build wind farms with ten gigawatts of output in the North Sea, AquaDuctus is developing an underwater pipeline and AquaSector is building an offshore electrolysis plant. (© RWE)
