Europe’s Largest Green Hydrogen Plant Under Construction
March 22, 2025
ByHaley Zaremba– Mar 22, 2025, 4:00 PM CDT
- A large-scale green hydrogen facility is under construction in Germany with the potential to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions and provide a sustainable chemical feedstock.
- Despite ambitious plans, the green hydrogen sector faces challenges including high production costs, insufficient offtake agreements, and the need for robust policy measures.
- While green hydrogen is touted as a key component of the clean energy transition, there is debate about whether it is the most efficient use of renewable energy resources.
Europe’s largest green hydrogen facility is underway in Germany, with the potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by up to 72,000 metric tons annually. The uniquely designed proton exchange membrane (PEM) water electrolyzer can supply the main plant it’s attached to with up to one metric ton of green hydrogen per hour to serve as a chemical feedstock. Once up and running, the 54MW PEM electrolyzer will generate over 8,000 tons of green hydrogen annually.
The project is a collaboration between chemical sector heavyweight BASF and Siemens Energy. “The robust machine would primarily provide feedstock for chemical products, as demand is increasing for more output and less environmental waste,” reports Interesting Engineering. “Currently, hydrogen is used to produce ammonia, methanol, and vitamins.”
‘;
document.write(write_html);
}
“Green hydrogen” is a label used to describe hydrogen produced using all renewable energies. It is more costly and therefore more rare than gray hydrogen, which is produced using fossil fuels and commonly consumed in the chemicals industry as well as other industrial sectors. Some industry insiders also make a distinction for hydrogen made using natural gas, seen as a bridge fuel between fossil fuels and clean energy, calling it “blue hydrogen.”
Green hydrogen has been touted as a potential cornerstone of the clean energy transition due to its utility in hard-to-abate sectors. In addition to its role as a chemical feedstock, hydrogen can be used as a combustive fuel. It burns at high temperatures like coal, but instead of producing greenhouse gas emissions, the combustion process leaves only water vapor behind. This makes it an attractive alternative for the notoriously emissions-intensive steelmaking, transportation, and shipping industries, among others.
But green hydrogen production has been slow to get off the ground. Despite ambitious global targets and high hopes for the sector’s disruptive potential, less than a tenth of the world’s planned green hydrogen projects had been implemented as of 2023. Tracking 190 projects over 3 years, a recent study identified “a wide 2023 implementation gap with only 7% of global capacity announcements finished on schedule.”
The authors of the study, entitled “The green hydrogen ambition and implementation gap”, identify three main reasons for the gap. The first reason is that green hydrogen is expensive to produce, and costs are continuing to climb. The second reason is insufficient offtake agreements, possibly due to industry anxieties about “the risk of becoming locked into an expensive and potentially scarce energy carrier.” Finally, the last reason is that robust policy measures must be implemented to de-risk investment in green hydrogen.
Germany’s BASF project managed to side-step some of these bottlenecks via significant government support and funding. According to Interesting Engineering, “The State of Rhineland-Palatinate and the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action provided up to €124.3 million for the plant’s construction.”
Moreover, BASF seems confident that by replacing gray hydrogen with green, it is offering a value addition that buyers will be excited about. “The commissioning of the electrolyzer makes it possible for us to support our customers in achieving their climate targets by offering them products with a lower carbon footprint,” says Katja Scharpwinkel, member of BASF SE’s Board of Executive Directors and Site Director Ludwigshafen.
While replacing gray hydrogen with green hydrogen is great news for the carbon footprints of individual companies and manufacturing life cycles, there is actually some doubt about whether producing green hydrogen is in fact the best use of renewable energies. In fact, a 2022 report by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) warned against the “indiscriminate use of hydrogen,” urging that policy-makers weigh their priorities carefully and consider that extensive use of green hydrogen “may not be in line with the requirements of a decarbonised world” and could even slow down the clean energy transition.
By Haley Zaremba for Oilprice.com
More Top Reads From Oilprice.com
Search
RECENT PRESS RELEASES
Related Post
