Lhyfe Wins Government Money for French Hydrogen Plant

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Written by Martin Lynch, European News Editor for Industrial Info (Galway, Ireland)--Renewable hydrogen firm Lhyfe (Nantes, France) is going ahead with plans for a large green hydrogen production plant near the port of Le Havre in France following the award of government financing.

The government has agreed to support the project with a grant of 149 million euro (US$160 million). Lhyfe's plant on a 2.8-hectare site in Gonfreville-l'Orcher will have an installed electrolysis capacity of 100 megawatts (MW) and will be located at one of Europe's largest industrial port areas, Grand Canal du Havre in northern France. It is also located close to a major ammonia production plant owned by the world's leading fertilizer producer, Yara International (Oslo, Norway), and will play an important part in its decarbonization efforts to cut emissions by 75% by 2030. The hydrogen plant is expected to be up and running by 2028.

"We are honored by the government's significant support for Lhyfe's project to build the future green hydrogen production site at Gonfreville-L'Orcher, which is a concrete expression of the decarbonization policy France has been pursuing for several years," said Matthieu Guesné, founder and chief executive officer of Lhyfe: "This project meets the challenges of the industrial port zone of Le Havre: a 100-MW site, capable of producing up to 34 tonnes of decarbonated hydrogen per day. The region's needs are present and massive, and we can meet them right now with a clean, mature and appropriate technology."

The Le Havre plant has already been approved by the European Commission (EC) as part of the third wave of IPCEI (Important Projects of Common European Interest) on hydrogen. France plans to install 6.5 gigawatts (GW) of low-carbon hydrogen production capacity by 2030, rising to 10 GW in 2035, according to the latest update of its national H2 strategy. Over the next four years it will invest up to 9 billion euro ($US9.7 billion) by 2030 to support the deployment of decarbonised hydrogen. By the end of this year it will begin a series of auctions using the Contracts for Difference model to support 1 GW of new green and nuclear-powered hydrogen projects. The first three hydrogen auctions will be for 150 MW, 250 MW and 600 MW of capacity, respectively.

Lhyfe's new investment comes just a month after Industrial Info reported that the firm had greenlit new projects in the U.K. and Germany. It has plans for a 20-MW project to be located on the brownfield site of the historic Neptune Bank Power Station in Wallsend, North Tyneside, in the U.K.'s industrial northeast. It will be its first project in the U.K.. It also started work on its second German project, a 10-MW hydrogen production plant in Brake in Lower Saxony. Located on land in the harbor area of Niedersachsen Ports, the largest public seaport operator in Germany, it will be the first in the northern German region to make green hydrogen available to the wider market. For additional information, see March 20, 2024, article - Lhyfe Reveals New U.K. and German Hydrogen Projects.

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