Siemens Gamesa said it is developing the world’s first project capable of producing green hydrogen directly from wind.
The pilot project in Denmark will be ready by January 2021 with the aim of field-testing the technology for producing hydrogen directly from wind energy.
The project will serve as a test bed for making cost-efficient hydrogen production a reality. Siemens Gamesa has partnered with Everfuel to distribute the project’s 100 percent green hydrogen output for refueling taxis across Denmark.
The pilot is under development close to Siemens Gamesa’s Danish headquarters in Brande, western Denmark. It includes a 3 MW Siemens Gamesa wind turbine owned by local partner Uhre Windpower, that will produce clean electricity to power a 400 kW electrolyzer.
This machine splits water into oxygen and hydrogen, so that the hydrogen can be stored and delivered to customers in the mobility sector. The project is close to obtaining final permits; the first test runs are planned for December 2020 and hydrogen production should start by January 2021.
When fully operational, the project’s single turbine will produce enough hydrogen to fuel around 50-70 taxis each day. Carbon-free hydrogen, derived from low-cost, competitive wind power, can be stored and transported for use on demand. This facility will provide insights that will be crucial to scaling up the technology to much larger turbines and wind farms both on land and at sea.
“Green hydrogen has the potential to be a game changer in the quest to decarbonize the power supply and solve the climate crisis,” said Andreas Nauen, Siemens Gamesa CEO.
Hydrogen is already used to power industry today, and currently accounts for 1.7 percent of global annual energy consumption. Just 1 percent of that hydrogen is generated from green energy sources. The bulk is obtained from natural gas and coal, emitting 830 million tons of CO2 per year.
Replacing this current polluting consumption would require 820 GW of wind generating capacity, 26 percent more than the current global installed wind capacity. Forecasts from industry sources point to hydrogen growing, requiring between 1,000 GW and 4,000 GW of renewable capacity by 2050 to meet demand.