Leading energy giant, Ørsted, has joined forces with Yara, a leading fertilizer company for developing a renewable hydrogen project in the Dutch province of Zeeland. This project aims at replacing fossil hydrogen with renewable hydrogen for producing ammonia using a 100 MW wind-powered electrolyser. The installation will be done at Yara’s Sluiskil plant in Zeeland, and it would use renewable power from Ørsted’s offshore wind farms.
The project would generate around 75,000 tons of green ammonia per year, contributing to around 10 per cent of the capacity of one of the ammonia plants in Sluiskil. This would in turn lead to a potential of abating more than 100,000 tonnes of CO2 per year. The offshore wind power for the electrolyser would be supplied from Ørsted’s Borssele 1&2 offshore wind farm, located off the coast of Zeeland, which are to be inaugurated soon.
The two companies will seek public co-funding for implementing the 100 MW electrolyser facility and then take a final investment decision to build the new plant by late 2021 or early 2022 based on its business case. If co-funding is secured and an enabling regulatory environment exists, then the project is expected to be operational in 2024 or 2025.
REGlobal‘s Views: With its abundant offshore wind resources and large hydrogen consumption centres in coastal areas, the Netherlands are well-positioned to lead the way in the green transformation of heavy industry powered by offshore wind, while securing the competitiveness of key industrial sectors and creating economic activity and jobs. This project can be a milestone on the hydrogen roadmap of the Smart Delta Resources cluster in Zeeland, and an important step in the scaling of renewable hydrogen in the Netherlands towards 3-4 GW by 2030.