Canadian Wind-to-Hydrogen Project Receives Government Loan

Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--World Energy GH2, an affiliate of green fuels producer World Energy LLC (Boston, Massachusetts), has obtained a loan from the Canadian federal government to help build out its wind-to-hydrogen project off the west coast of Newfoundland and Labrador, which will result Canada's first commercial-scale "green" hydrogen and ammonia production complex.

The definitive agreement supplies a C$128 million (US$95 million) credit facility to "support the development of Project Nujio'qonik through to its financial close of its long-term financing," according to a February 28 press release.

Credit facilities are a form of pre-approved loan that allow a borrower to access money on an ongoing basis rather than applying for a new loan each time, similar to a line of credit.

"The credit facility will help finance the build-out of clean power generation and clean hydrogen production that will advance Canada's efforts and initiatives in pursuit of global decarbonization," according to the press release.

The project is designed to generate and export "green" energy to markets in Germany, Europe and around the world, as well as for domestic consumption.

According to the press release, Project Nujio'qonik, located in Stephenville, Newfoundland and Labrador, will provide about 210,000 tons of green hydrogen per year (1.2 million tons of green ammonia); the first phase is expected to produce about 400,000 tons of green ammonia for export. The green hydrogen and ammonia will be RFNBO-compliant (renewable fuels of non-biological origin), meeting Europe's criteria for green hydrogen.

World Energy GH2 submitted an amendment to the project's environmental impact statement (EIS) in August 2023, the same month the project received land lease approvals for construction of the three windfarms that are planned to supply the hydrogen/ammonia plant with more than 3 gigawatts (GW) of renewable energy.

In the press release, Kyung-il Park, chief executive officer of SK ecoplant, which owns a 20% stake in Project Nujio'qonik, provided an update on the project timeline: "Thanks to this commitment from the federal government, we expect our project to move more quickly into the next phase, such as FEED (front-end engineering and design) execution and long-lead item orders." SK ecoplant is part of South Korean conglomerate SK Group.

Subscribers to Industrial Info's Power and Chemical Processing project databases can click here for a full list of project reports related to Project Nujio'qonik.

Another major green hydrogen project in Canada to receive financial support from the federal government (C$125 million) (US$91 million) is EverWind Fuels' US$6 billion Point Tupper green hydrogen and ammonia plant in Nova Scotia, the first phase of which received environmental approval from the federal government in February 2023. The multi-phase project is designed to produce up to 1.1 million tons of green hydrogen and ammonia per year; it has binding offtake agreements in place with German companies Uniper (Dusseldorf) and E.ON SE (Germany), and deliveries of green ammonia are expected by the end of 2025. Construction is tentatively planned to kick off in August.

The first phase entails converting an existing refined products storage terminal to a green hydrogen and ammonia production facility. Supporting projects entail constructing a transmission line and water connections between the green hydrogen and ammonia units, and adding additional tanks to store ammonia. The company also plans to build a 2-GW windfarm to support the facility. Click here for a full list of related project reports.

Subscribers to Industrial Info's GMI Database can click here to view reports for all of the projects discussed in this article and click here to see the related plant profiles.

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