Ørsted has announced plans to develop one of the world’s largest green hydrogen plants, powered by offshore wind, to feed industrial demand in the Netherlands and Belgium. The project, dubbed ‘SeaH2Land’ will be constructed by 2030 and would comprise a 1 GW green hydrogen production facility linked directly to a newly built 2 GW offshore wind farm in the Dutch North Sea. The offshore wind farm could be built in one of the zones in the southern part of the Dutch exclusive economic zone that has already been designated for offshore wind development. If realised, the project could convert about 20 per cent of the current hydrogen consumption in the region to green hydrogen.
With 580,000 tonnes per year, the cluster is one of the largest production and demand centres of fossil hydrogen in Europe. Driven by decarbonisation efforts, industrial demand in the cluster could grow to about 1,000,000 tonnes by 2050, equivalent to roughly 10 GW of electrolysis.
Several locations north and south of the river Scheldt have been identified for the GW-scale electrolysis plant. Parallelly, several projects are being developed in the region on other sites which will also be connected to the network.
In January 2021, Ørsted reached a final investment decision on the H2RES demonstration project in Denmark, where the first hydrogen production is expected in late 2021. The project will comprise a 2 MW electrolysis plant with appurtenant hydrogen storage powered by 3.6 MW of offshore wind capacity.