The Oyster project will look to answer some of the design and engineering questions posed by offshore hydrogen production. (Credit: Siemens Gamesa)
[Editor’s note: Ørsted is the Danish company that is developing the Ocean Wind energy wind farm some 15 miles off the coast of southern New Jersey. Construction is planned to start in the early 2020’s, with the wind farm operational in 2024. The New Jersey project will utilize conventional wind-energy technology not like what is described below]
BY JOHN PARNELL, greentechmedia
Global offshore wind developer Ørsted has become the latest major player to pursue off-grid green hydrogen, a technology that could expand capacity for converting offshore wind power to zero-carbon energy.
The Danish firm is collaborating with ITM Power, Siemens Gamesa and Element Energy on the Oyster project. The consortium was awarded a €5 million grant by the European Commission on Friday.
Oyster is developing a desalination and electrolysis system that is fully “marinized,” that is, modified for marine use. The stated aim is to make green hydrogen cost-competitive as a replacement fuel for methane (which is the largest component of natural gas).
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ITM Power CEO Graham Cooley told GTM that the first challenge was integrating the power electronics of the electrolyzer and a wind turbine, and the second was to harden it to be able to stand up to the conditions it will have to withstand at sea.
A modified electrolyzer will be put through its paces in simulated offshore conditions.
“The other important aspect of it is water. […] If you’re offshore, you’ll be using desalinated seawater,” said Cooley. “So it is about combining all those things together. It’s the integration of the electrolyzer with the wind turbine, planning the ability to install offshore, and the use of seawater as the main source of water for the electrolyzer.”
Cooley points out that oil rigs have been using desalination equipment at sea for decades and have survived everything the North Sea can throw at them in the process.
Design work on Oyster will begin now, with the project running through 2024.
Pilots plan to answer islanded green hydrogen’s big questions
Plans to use offshore wind power and on-site electrolyzers to pump hydrogen instead of power back to shore are garnering more interest, with German utility RWE leading the most ambitious project, its 10 GW AquaVentus proposal, which has buy-in from Shell, Vestas, Siemens Energy and fellow utility Vattenfall. AquaVentus will start with pilot and demo phases before deploying in 2-gigawatt tranches and hitting 10 GW by 2035.
Pilot projects like Oyster will help to answer some of the remaining key questions around the concept. These include sizing electrolyzers to maximize utilization, a key factor in the cost of producing green hydrogen, when offshore wind capacity factors max out at around the 50 percent mark.
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