INEOS has announced that it will invest more than €2 billion in electrolysis projects around Europe to produce green hydrogen. The company’s first plants will be developed in Norway, Germany, and Belgium, with more investment anticipated in the United Kingdom and France. The first unit to be built will be a 20MW electrolyser in Norway that would produce clean hydrogen by electrolyzing water with zero-carbon electricity. By decreasing the carbon footprint of INEOS’ operations at Rafnes and functioning as a hub to distribute hydrogen to the Norwegian transportation industry, this project will result in a minimum reduction of 22,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year.
At its Koln plant in Germany, INEOS plans to build a larger 100MW electrolyser to produce green hydrogen. The development will help INEOS’ operations at the site decarbonize even further. The hydrogen produced by the unit will be utilised to make green ammonia. The Koln project will result in a reduction of around 120,000 tonnes of carbon emissions per year. It will also make it possible to generate E-fuels on a large scale through power-to-methanol applications.
In November 2020, as part of INOVYN, INEOS announced a new business to develop and build green hydrogen capacity across Europe, supporting the transition to a zero-carbon future. The INEOS hydrogen company will be headquartered in the UK, with the goal of increasing hydrogen production capacity across the INEOS network of facilities in Europe, as well as partner sites where hydrogen may help expedite energy decarbonization.
REGlobal’s Views: Companies worldwide are planning massive investments in the green hydrogen space to amass portfolios and become leaders in this space. Europe particularly has become a hotbed of activity for these projects and is witnessing the deployment of many such large electrolyser projects.
