RWE Fires Up Green Hydrogen Facility at Lingen

Written by Martin Lynch, European News Editor for Industrial Info (Galway, Ireland)--German power major RWE AG (Essen, Germany) has announced the start of green hydrogen production in Lingen, Germany, with the commissioning of a 14-megawatt (MW) electrolyser facility.

Located on the site of the Emsland gas-fired plant and powered by renewables, the pilot plant can generate up to 270 kilograms of green hydrogen per hour using two different electrolysis technologies. Next to the pilot plant, construction is underway on a 100-MW large commercial electrolyser plant, which is part of the company's GET H2 Nukleus project. With commissioning expected next year, RWE expects to expand that capacity to 300 MW by 2027.

The pilot electrolyser consists of two subsystems--an alkaline electrolyser from Sunfire (Dresden) with a capacity of 10 MW and a 4 MW plant, designed and built by Linde plc (NYSE:LIN) (Woking, England) using a proton exchange membrane (PEM) electrolyser from ITM Power (Sheffield, U.K.).

Germany's Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate Action Robert Habeck welcomed the news: "I am convinced that electrolysers like this one here in Lingen will make an important contribution towards a successful energy transition. The green hydrogen generated in the electrolysers here will be a key component for the decarbonisation of industry and the energy sector in Germany. By supporting hydrogen along the entire value chain, we are taking an important step towards a climate-neutral and sustainable economy in Germany." The German government is a strong proponent for the rollout of green hydrogen and has provided significant funding support: 8 million euros (US$8.9 million) for the pilot project and a further 490 million euros (US$543.5 million) for constructing the 300 MW GET H2 Nukleus project.

Markus Krebber, chief executive officer of RWE AG, said: "Lingen is one of the most exciting locations of the German energy transition. In addition to operating our flexible gas-fired power plant and our state-of-the-art large-scale battery system, we are now also producing green hydrogen here. Over the coming years, we will expand our production capacities for green hydrogen at this site further to supply industrial consumers with green molecules and thus support them in their decarbonisation efforts."

In related news, Shell plc (NYSE:SHEL) (London, England) has contracted ITM Power to supply 100 MW of its Trident electrolyser technology for its Refhyne II green hydrogen project at the Shell Rheinland Energy and Chemicals Park in Germany. It follows Shell's recent Final Investment Decision (FID) and comes after the successful 10-MW Refhyne I pilot project which was commissioned in 2021. Refhyne II will use renewable electricity to produce up to 44,000 kilograms of renewable hydrogen daily, partially decarbonising fuel production at Shell's Wesseling refinery. It is scheduled to begin operating in 2027.

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