Swedish multinational power company Vattenfall has been awarded GBP 9.3 million ($11.54 million) to develop the world's first hydrogen-producing offshore wind turbine, with the electrolyzer placed directly onto an existing operational turbine, the company announced on Thursday.
The pilot project at Vattenfall's Offshore Wind Farm in Aberdeen Bay will have an output of 8 megawatts (MW) and will be able to produce enough hydrogen every day to power a hydrogen bus to travel 24,000 kilometers.
'The hydrogen will be piped to shore at Aberdeen Harbor,' the company stated.
Commenting on the statement, Danielle Lane, UK Country Manager for Vattenfall, said that placing hydrogen electrolyzers on offshore wind turbines is likely to be the quickest and cheapest way of providing fossil-free hydrogen at scale.
- First project of its kind
The project called 'Hydrogen Turbine 1 (HT1)' aims to be the first project in the world to test the full integration of hydrogen production with an offshore wind turbine.
HT1 will also map out development and consent processes for large-scale hydrogen projects co-located with offshore wind farms to speed up future development.
'The availability of large quantities of fossil-free hydrogen will play a key role in the decarbonization of heavy industry (predominantly in steel, chemicals, and fertilizer production as well as refining), and heavy transport,' the statement read, and added that the work will commence immediately with the goal of first production as early as 2025.
By Gulsen Cagatay
Anadolu Agency
energy@aa.com.tr