Spanish renewable energy developer Acciona is leading a pioneering government funded project. 6 million euros to build what would be the first green hydrogen plant in the world powered by floating wind and photovoltaic technologies.
OceanH2, this is the name of the green hydrogen project, will be based on the two-headed floating wind units of the Swedish company Hexicon and on the new generation solar installations offshore.
OceanH2 will explore “different deployment scenarios” for an offshore hybrid electricity generation system, taking into account the emerging green hydrogen production, storage and distribution chain.
Laboratory-scale tests begin conducted by Wunder Hexicon, a company jointly owned by Hexicon and the Spanish company WunderSight. The three-year project will be developed in six autonomous communities of the European country: Madrid, Canary Islands, Andalusia, Cantabria, Navarra and Catalonia – to “ensure technological synergies and national scientific capacities”.
Green hydrogen from offshore energy
Marcus Thor, CEO of Hexicon, has very clear ideas about the advantages (also for thetechnology) of such a plant.
First, of course, there is unlimited water offshore for the electrolysis process that produces green hydrogen. Secondly, that floating wind farms could operate even without connection to the mainland.
They would produce green hydrogen for offshore loading onto tankers for onward transportation to industry, or for future use as a green shipping fuel.
This would favor both the creation of jobs and the mobilization of future investments to implement the innovative results of the project in the market.
The OceanH2 green hydrogen project is supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities and will involve twelve research centers across the country.
The wind of change
Once seen as an experimental technology, floating wind is gaining ever more speed. More and more industrial-scale independent projects are being seen in major maritime regions around the world.
Hexicon currently has pure floating wind developments underway off Korea with oil giant Shell. Green hydrogen power plants are also planned in South Africa and Scotland, but this is its first hybrid project, although the Swedish company's original offshore energy project included wind, marine and solar technologies.
The floating wind market is on the verge of explosive growth globally.
By 2040 it will have an expansion nearly 1.000 times the current global fleet. Not bad, right?
DNV, in its latest Energy Transition Outlook, predicts around 260 GW of floating wind worldwide by 2050.
