By William Mathis (Bloomberg)
Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy SA and Siemens Energy AG plan to spend 120 million euros ($146 million) to figure out how to generate hydrogen from wind farms in the middle of the sea.
The companies aim to build a prototype with one of Siemens Gamesa’s new wind turbines that are the largest on the market with blades that stretch 222 meters (728 feet), roughly the length of two soccer pitches. It’s the latest effort by some of Europe’s biggest clean energy companies to get an edge in the growing market to produce hydrogen from renewable energy.
Clean-burning hydrogen is a key part of the European Union’s plan to effectively eliminate greenhouse gas emissions by the middle of the century. Hydrogen made from a wind farm could be used to cut emissions from heavy industries or chemical producers that are struggling to limit their impact on the climate.
By William Mathis (Bloomberg)
Danish electrolyzer startup Green Hydrogen Systems A/S raised 28 million euros ($34.3 million) to scale up production of the technology that’s at the heart of the European Union’s climate goals.
Competition is heating up among makers of the machines to capture a wave of orders that will make up the EU’s first generation of utility-scale green hydrogen production funded by government subsidies.
Electrolyzers are the machines that use electricity to separate hydrogen out of water. The clean-burning gas could then be used to replace fossil fuels in a wide variety of applications such as heavy industry, shipping and aviation.
By Rachel Morison and William Mathis (Bloomberg)
Britain’s electricity grid operator is pushing deeper into the turbulent waters of the North Sea, seeking to support the government’s $27 billion program to build up the offshore wind industry.
Executives from National Grid Plc meet government officials on Thursday to discuss how a growing tangle of projects offshore can be best connected to the network on land. At the moment, wind farms at sea are each linked individually with separate cables. Combining some of those links could cut the amount of new infrastructure needed in half.
The work is crucial for Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government to deliver on commitments to eliminate fossil fuel emissions by 2050. Ministers put offshore wind at the heart of plans to cut carbon emissions from power generation, and the current system of grid connections would leave an expensive and unmanageable tangle of wires reaching from wind farms at sea to the shore.